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ALL THE RUSSIAS 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



TRAVELS AND STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY 

EUROPEAN RUSSIA, FINLAND, SIBERIA 

THE CAUCASUS, AND CENTRAL ASIA 






BY 



HENRY NORMAN, M.P. 

AUTHOR OF "THE PEOPLES AND POLITICS OF THE FAR EAST, 
"THE REAL JAPAN," ETC. 



WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE ILLUSTRATIONS 

CHIEFLY FROM THE AUTHOR'S PHOTOGRAPHS 

AND FOUR MAPS 



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NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1902 




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THE LIBRARY OF 
COfiGRESS, 

Two Copies Recsiveo 

SEP. 11 1902 


COPVRIQHT ENTRY 

CLASS i^yCKo. No. 


COPY 


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Copyright, 1902, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

Published, September, 1902 



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TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 

NEW YORK 






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TO 
MY SON NIGEL 

• . . olim hoc pro patre loquetur 



PREFACE 

THIS volume is the outcome of fifteen years' interest in 
Russian affairs, culminating in four journeys — one of 
nearly 20,000 miles — in European and Asiatic Russia. In the 
course of these, besides a residence of some time in St. Peters- 
burg and visits to the principal cities, I travelled in Finland, in 
Siberia as far as Lake Baikal ( I had previously been to Vladivos- 
tok), in the Caucasus, and in Central Asia as far as the frontier 
of Kashgar. During all these journeys I was afforded oppor- 
tunities of seeing and investigating every matter that interested 
me, and of making the acquaintance of the chief Russian ad- 
ministrators in every part. Indeed, official courtesy went so far 
as to convey me, by a special train and a special steamer, to 
places I could not otherwise have seen, and to provide for my 
safety on another occasion by an escort of Cossacks. 

In case the reader may wonder how, without a mastery of 
the Russian language, I held the conversations and made the 
inquiries here described, I may say that during my chief jour- 
neys I took with me as interpreter a young Russian gentleman, 
a student of law at the University of Moscow, whose knowledge 
and intelligent sympathy were of the greatest service to me. 
Without such help, or the ability to speak Russian fluently, a 
journey for any serious purpose in Russia outside the two capitals 
would be a waste of time. 



iv PREFACE 

It has not been my object to write a comprehensive account 
of Russian institutions and Russian Hfe. This exists in ad- 
mirable form in the two volumes of Sir Donald Mackenzie 
Wallace, which remain, when allowance is made for the changes 
since their publication, the most instructive and trustworthy gen- 
eral work upon Russia. My own modest aim has been to pre- 
sent a picture of the aspects of contemporary Russia of most 
interest to foreign readers, with especial reference to the recent 
remarkable industrial and commercial development of Russia, 
and the possibility of closer commercial and political relations 
between Russia and Great Britain. This last I regard as the 
most important question (after Anglo-American relations) in 
British foreign politics to-day. 

As in former books, I have tried to present in their natural 
relationship the picturesque surface and the solid substratum of 
fact, in the hope of making my pages at the same time enter- 
taining and informing. I trust, therefore, that the reader will 
not resent the occasional close proximity of the light and the 
weighty. 

It has been my strenuous endeavour to be fair and frank in 
my judgments, and so far as one may, to divest myself of inborn 
and acquired prejudices. I have never accepted any courtesy 
that might in the slightest degree fetter my freedom of speech. 
Feelings about each other, however, run so high in both Rus- 
sians and Englishmen that it is probably impossible for a writer 
of either country to hold the balance of his judgment perfectly 
level, but I anticipate with satisfaction that in England I shall 
be regarded as too pro-Russian, and in Russia as too anti- 
Russian. 

With two insignificant exceptions — the Governor of Sam- 



PREFACE V 

arkand and the Chief of PoHce at Askhabad — I received at 
all times the greatest kindness and courtesy, indeed, the most 
friendly help, from Russian officials everywhere. The list of all 
to whom I owe thanks, including many British representatives, 
would be too long, and I must therefore content myself with a 
cordial acknowledgment in general terms. I cannot omit, how- 
ever, to beg His Excellency, Monsieur de Witte, Minister of 
Finance, to accept my most sincere and respectful thanks for 
permitting me to have frequent recourse to his distinguished 
assistance, and for honouring my journeys with a sympathy 
which opened to me every official door in Russia. 

To escape one minor criticism I may say that my rendering 
of Russian proper names exhibits certain inconsistencies, but 
that, while retaining accepted spellings of familiar names, I have 
endeavoured to follow a simple and accurate system of trans- 
literation. 

The majority of my illustrations are reproduced from my 
own photographs. The rest I procured in the places where 
they were taken. The striking photographs of Their Maj- 
esties the Tsar and Tsaritsa were taken by Messrs. Gan & Co., 
of Tsarskoe Selo. The maps have been specially drawn for 
this volume. H. N. 



CONTENTS 



THE CAPITALS 

CHAPTER PACK 

I. St. Petersburg and the Way There . . . . i 
II. The Two Moscows, and a Few Reflections . •23 

COUNT TOLSTOI AT HOME AND ABROAD 

III. Leo, the Son of Nicholas 47 

FINLAND 

IV. Finland : the Land of Wood and Water ... 64 
V. The Finns and Their Neighbours . . . . . 79 

SIBERIA 

VI. The Significance of Siberia ....... 96 

VII. The Great Siberian Railway 102 

VIII. Siberia From the Train . . . . . . , .127 

IX. Siberian Civilisation 142 

X. The Prison of Irkutsk 157 

THE GREAT WATER-WAY 

XL ''Little Mother Volga" .,...,. 164 

THE CAUCASUS 

XIL The Frosty Caucasus 172 

XIII. The Georgian Road , .181 

XIV. Tiflis of the Cross-Roads 202 

XV. The Oil- Wells of Baku 219 



viii CONTENTS 

CENTRAL ASIA 

CHAPTER p^GB 

XVI. The Trans-Caspian Railway : Across Central Asia 

BY Train 228 

XVII. Russian Expansion in Central Asia . . . .254 

XVIII. Russian Administration in Central Asia: Trans- 

Caspia and Tashkent 272 

XIX. New Bokhara and Its Prospects 287 

XX. Old Bokhara and Its Horrors 297 

XXI. Samarkand and Beyond 319 

ECONOMICS 

XXII. M. DE Witte and His Policy 349 

XXIII. Russian Finance, Commerce, and Industry . . 363 

FOREIGN POLITICS 

XXIV. Russia and the Nations 387 

XXV. Russia and England 413 

CONCLUSION 

XXVI. Retrospect and Prospect 449 

APPENDIX 457 

INDEX , 459 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

T. M. THE Tsar and Tsaritsa at Home .... Frontispiece 

PAGE 

The Russian Policeman i 

The Fortress and Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Petersburg . 4 

Cathedral of St, Isaac, St. Petersburg facing 8 

The Nevski Prospect, St. Petersburg 11 

The Ministry of War, St. Petersburg facing 20 

Gate and Chapel of the Old City, Moscow 23 

A Gate of the Old City, Moscow 25 

Women in the Sunday Market, Moscow 27 

The Cathedral of St. Basil the Beatified, Moscow, Sixteenth Century 29 
The Kremlin, Moscow, from the Kamenny Bridge . , . .31 

The Kremlin, Moscow t,t, 

H. M. THE Tsar at the Manoeuvres facing 36 

The Kremlin Square and Memorial of Alexander III., Moscow . . 37 

Broken Down on the Steppe 39 

Tapping the Telegraph for Help 43 

The Home of the Romanoffs, Moscow .45 

The Gateway of Yasnaya Polyana 51 

Count Tolstoy at Home 53 

Yasnaya Polyana, Count Tolstoy's Home (Front) . . . . -56 

Yasnaya Polyana, Count Tolstoy's Home (Back) 57 

A Country House in Finland 66 

The City and Harbour of Helsingfors 68, 69 

The Diet House, Helsingfors 71 

The Burghers' Chamber 72 

Finland's Love for Alexander II 73 

The Finnish Landscape — Mountain, Lake, Forest, Field . . -75 

A Road in Finland 77 

A Finnish Mourning Stamp . 79 

Finnish Agriculture — Burning the Woods for a Seed-bed . . .81 

Arhippaina Miihkali, the Finnish Blind Bard 84 

The Rune-singers 86 

Finnish Types 88 

Salmon Traps in Finland 90 

A Finnish Wedding: The Bride's Prayer on Leaving Home . . .92 
" " Veiling the Dowered Bride . . . .93 

ix 



X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

A Finnish Pearl-fisher 95 

A Siberian Locomotive 103 

A Party of Russian Engineers in the Primeval Forest . . .105 
The Top of the Urals — the Water-parting between Europe and 

Asia .113 

The Railway in the Urals .114 

The Steamship "Baikal" Steaming through the Ice . . . .121 

Bow OF THE "Baikal" Breaking the Ice 122 

The Last Station in Europe 128 

The Boundary between Europe and Asia 129 

The Town of Zlataoust from the Railway 131 

Gold-diggers Waiting for the Train 133 

What you See for Days from the Siberian Express .... 134 
The Water-tower and Store-house at Every Station . . . .135 

The Regular Siberian Station 137 

Siberian Peasants Watching the Train 139 

Building a Hut in the Taiga 140 

The Tower of the Fire-watch, Irkutsk 142 

The City of Irkutsk 143 

The Technical School, Irkutsk . 147 

The Museum, Irkutsk 149 

The Cathedral, Irkutsk 151 

Poor Siberian Peasant 152 

Prosperous Siberian Peasant . . -155 

Inside the Prison, Irkutsk— A Group of Convicts to be "Distributed " 160 

The Volga . 166 

A Timber Barge on the Volga 167 

Caucasian Types — Tatars . -173 

" . "A Tekkin Family i75 

" " The Real Circassian 177 

Batum 179 

Vladikavkaz, at the Foot of the Caucasus 183 

The Georgian Road : A Woolly Wave 186 

" " " Russian Fort in the Pass 189 

" " " The Castle of Princess Tamara in the Gorge 

OF Dariel 192 

" ** " Round the Mountain Side 194 

" " " The Top of the Pass— Old Road . . .195 

" " " Crossing the Summit 197 

" " How THE Road comes down at Mleti . . 199 

Shoeing an Ox in the Caucasus . 201 

Tiflis 203 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi 

PAGE 
TiFLIS AND THE RUINS OF THE CiTADEL 20$ 

A Bit of Old.Tiflis 207 

A Caucasian Type — Rostom the Guide 208 

WiNE-SKINS AND THE WiNE-SHOP, TiFLIS 2IO 

The Shampooer of Tiflis 211 

A Chat at the Wine-shop, Tiflis 212 

A Wandering Beggar, Tiflis . , 213 

A "Fountain" at Baku 221 

The Railway Station, Baku 225 

The Landing-Stage at Krasnovodsk 229 

The Railway Station, " . 231 

The Trans-Caspian Train 232 

Geok Tepe, the Old Ramparts and the New Railway . . . 235 

A Glass of Tea While the Train Stops 241 

A Mystery in Trans-Caspia — Turkomans Examining the Train . . 244 

Bread-sellers at a Station . . 250 

In the New Tashkent 274 

Tashkent : A Cossack Patrol 276 

" The Boys' College 278. 

** A Familiar Sight 280 

" The Area 282 

" Father and Son 284 

Bokhara : City and Citadel 298 

" The Portal of the Amir's Palace 300 

" The "Batcha" . . 302 

*' The Unveiled Ladies . . 303 

" A Street Grimacer 307 

" The Tower of Executions 308 

" The Approach to the Prison 311 

** The Prison Gate and the Gaoler 312 

** The Door of the Great Prison 314 

" The Horror of Horrors 316 

Samarkand: The Rigistan 321 

A Sart 323 

The Madrassa Shir Dar 324 

The Madrassa of Ulugh Beg 325 

Interior of Shir Dar 327 

Portal of the Tomb of Tamerlane 329 

The Tomb of Tamerlane 330 

" " " The Upper Chamber . . . 331 

" " " The Crypt Where He Lies . 332 

Mausoleum of Bibi Khanum 334 



Xll 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Samarkand : Tomb of Bibi Khanum .... 

" Mausoleum and Mosque of Shah Zindah 

" Interior of Shah Zindah 

" The Hour of Prayer 

The Avenue of Andijan 
The Native Policeman of Andijan 
Packing Cotton in Andijan 
The Entrance to Osh 
A Kirghiz Family Shopping in Osh 
A Mother and Daughter of Osh and their Home 
"Osh, and No Mistake!" — The End of My Journey 
His Excellency M. de Witte, Minister of Finance 



PAGE 

335 
336 
337 
338 
339 
340 
342 
344 
345 
346 
347 
353 



MAPS 



PAGE 

The Trans-Siberian Railway {Eastern Section) 107 

Railways of the Caucasus . . . . 215 

The Trans-Caspian Railway . . 251 

Railway Expansion in Asia / facing 260 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



THE CAPITALS 



CHAPTER I 



ST. PETERSBURG AND THE WAY THERE 



R 



USSIA!" 

Wiliat a flock of thoughts take wing as the word 
strikes the ear! Does any word in any language, except the 
dear name of one's own land, mean as much to-day? 

What is Russia? The unfettered, irre- 
sponsible, limitless, absolute rule of one man 
over a hundred millions of his fellows — is 
that it? The ikon in the corner of every 
room where the language is spoken, the 
blue-domed basilica in every street of great 
cities, the long-haired priests chanting in 
deep bass, the pedestrian ceaselessly crossing 
himself, the Holy Synod, whose God-given 
task it is to coerce or to cajole a heathen 
world to orthodoxy — is that Russia? Or is 
it the society of the capital, speaking all 
languages, familiar with all literatures, prac- 
tising every art, lapped in every luxury, es- 
teeming manners more highly than morals? 
> ^^V Or is it the vast and nearly roadless country, 

where settlements are to distances like fly- 
specks to window-panes; where the con- 
veniences, the comforts, and often the decencies of civilisa- 
tion may be sought in vain outside the towns and away 




The Russian Policeman 



2 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

from the lines of railway; where entire villages are the prey 
of disease; where seven people out of every ten can neither 
read nor write? 

Siberia is Russia — five million square miles, in which whole 
countries are a quivering carpet of wild-flowers in spring, a rolling 
grain-field in autumn, an ice-bound waste in winter, stored full 
of every mineral, crossed by the longest railway in the world, and 
largely inhabited by a population of convicts and exiles. 

Central Asia is Russia — a million and a half square miles of 
barren desert and irrigated oasis, the most famous cities of Asia 
and the greatest river, a few years ago the hot-bed of Mussulman 
fanaticism, probably the cradle of the human race, and possibly 
the scene of its most fateful conflict. 

The Eastern Question is— how will Russia try again to get 
Constantinople? The Far Eastern Question is — will Russia suc- 
ceed in dominating China? A question of questions for the 
British Empire is — will Russia attempt to invade India? 

The Triple Alliance is a league against Russia. The Dual 
Alliance is Russia's reply. Russia called the nations to the Con- 
ference of Peace. 

It would be easier to say what is not Russia. In world- 
afTairs, wherever you turn you see Russia; whenever you listen 
you hear her. She moves in every path; she is mining in every 
claim. The '' creeping murmur " of the world is her footfall — 
the '' poring dark " is her veil. To the challenge of the nations, 
as they peer from their borders, comes ever the same reply — 

'' Who goes there? " 

''Russia!'' 

It is a long way to St. Petersburg on the map. Across a 
corner of France, right across Belgium, across Germany, and a 
final northward stretch up to the Gulf of Finland — what an end- 
less railway journey it must be ! As a matter of fact, the capital 
of Russia is a whole. day nearer London by rail than Seville, and 



ST. PETERSBURG AND THE WAY THERE 3 

exactly the same distance as Naples. You leave Charing Cross 
at eleven; an engine, dining-car and sleeping-car of the Inter- 
national Sleeping-Car Company are waiting on a siding at Calais; 
as soon as the conductor has secured all the passengers on his 
list the little train starts with a rush, and hardly checks its almost 
alarming speed until it lands you on the platform at Brussels, 
ahead of the train from Ostend which brings the direct passengers 
from Dover — the better route — by its proper few minutes. Only 
once are you delayed by one of the ridiculous performances so 
dear to the heart of the Continental official. At Blandain, where 
the train enters Belgium, all the registered luggage is bundled 
out upon the platform, hastily fumbling porters thread string 
through the buckles and handles of each bag and portmanteau, 
and a solemn functionary, approaching like a questioner of the 
Inquisition, affixes lead seals to the knots, by means of a pair 
of iron forceps a yard long. You leave Brussels at four minutes 
past six, the German frontier is crossed at Herbesthal at half- 
past nine, and you are in bed as the train runs through Cologne 
at eighteen minutes past eleven. While you are taking your 
morning coffee the miles of new houses, wide streets, and long 
avenues of Berlin flash by — the newest-looking capital in the 
world, and all day long the plains of agricultural Germany un- 
roll, where innumerable stacks of straw prove how grain grows 
under an agrarian tariff. 

Military concentration is writ large over the railway here- 
abouts. At every station as you approach the frontier the lines 
expand into a dozen, each alongside a platform, obviously that 
trains may be filled and emptied quickly, collected or distributed 
without block and delay, if ever it should be necessary to hurl 
the military might of Germany northward. So far as transport 
is concerned, the fateful word '' Mobilise " would evidently find 
everything as ready on this frontier as on the other. One mailed 
fist stretches over the Rhine, but another is clenched by the 
Baltic. Eydtkuhnen, the last frontier station, is of course filled 



4 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

with uniforms, and as the train moves on we catch, through the 
dusk, glimpses of fortifications low and broad and new, as we 
have seen several times already, commanding the line and its 
approaches. I find myself wondering, as we glide away, at which 
platform the group of German officers stood a few years ago 
to look for their traveller from over the frontier, standing at 
the sleeping-car door with a packet in his hand — a packet which 
betrayed one of the best-kept secrets of the world; which caused 
quick recalls and surprising promotions in that class of men 




The Fortress and Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Petersburg. 



who serve their countries by combining the roles of gentleman 
and spy; which gave the hangman a hasty job in the recesses 
of a famous fortress, and threw upon the charity of His Majesty 
the Tsar — never sought in such circumstances in vain — a widow 
and a child. 

You make your entry into Russia like a thief in the night. 
It is after .eight o'clock, and dark, when you all pour in anxious 
flood from the train into the Customs Hall at Vierzhbolovo, or 
in German, Wirballen. Commanding figures in grey and gold, 
whom you take at the first glance to be at least Major-Gen- 



ST. PETERSBURG AND THE WAY THERE 5 

erals, but who are really officers of police and Customs, stand 
by the doors; a soldier collects passports as the passengers enter 
until he has a great sheaf of all sizes and colours; and a little 
army of porters in blouses and magenta belts and top-boots car- 
ries off the luggage, and quickly sorts it by the baggage num- 
bers it bears. The officials gather round a table in the middle 
of the hall, where the passports are registered and stamped 
with a notice that you cannot leave Russia again without a 
police permit, or without a Russian passport if your stay has 
lasted six months. I expected that our luggage would be ran- 
sacked through and through. On the contrary, I have never 
been more courteously treated, nor more expeditiously dis- 
patched. But the striking contrast with all other Continental 
Custom Houses was the silence, the discipHne, the routine, the 
order — there was neither rudeness nor chatter. 

The gauge of the Russian railway is wider than the German, 
with the obvious intention of preventing German rolling-stock 
from being available in Russia in case of invasion, so you change 
cars here — the only time between Calais and St. Petersburg 
— and in the night, with the wood-sparks belching from the big 
engine and tearing past the carriage windows, you pursue your 
unseen way through the mysterious country whose name has 
sounded differently in your ear from the name of every other 
country on the map since first you heard it. You only know it 
is Russia, because it differs so much from every description you 
have read of it. The mahogany-panelled carriage is lighted by a 
score of candles, among which more silent, dignified servants 
move, pouring vodka and bringing tea in glasses — and this is the 
only Russian thing, so far, in which popular rumour has met its 
liabilities. 

Express speed in Russia, as exemplified by the Nord Express, 
is about twenty miles an hour, so the wide car runs easily and 
quietly. The red sparks fly ever from the wood-fed engine, the 
night passes and the dawn grows pink and grey over Russia. 



/ 



6 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

And what do you see? Why, heather! Miles upon miles of the 
lavender-pink ling, faithfully making carpet as ever for the silver 
birches and the Scotch firs, whose feet, seemingly, are not at 
ease beneath any other rug — Scotch firs, spruces, the Austrian 
Christmas-tree, silver birch, low-growing alder, and that shrubby 
tree I know only as '* Scotch mahogany." It grows here by loch 
sides, as in Scotland, where it makes your fingers pink when you 
cut a switch of it to string five meagre, peaty trout upon. There 
is hardly a sign of life. Little grey wood-shingled cottages, the 
house not to be known from the stable; little scrappy patches 
of oats, very short in the straw and very poor in the ear; the 
occasional huddled figure of a peasant moving slowly in the walce 
of some saddened beast. Here, in these Baltic provinces, is not 
the wealth of Russia — neither the industrial nor the agricultural 
sphere of activity I have come to see. Here is landscape, sim- 
ple, vast, unalterable landscape — not country malleable to the 
touch of ambitious or covetous humaaity. A crop, when there 
is one, rises bleakly, half-heartedly, from the sparse soil. Earth 
is grim, and has no heart to laugh with produce. To him who 
deplaces the heather and lops its guardian fir-tree little good 
comes, as we know, and small increase. In these vast moorland 
and water-sodden spaces — for there is water, yes, and bulrushes 
and dabchicks, too — there is no joy of life. The moorland, with 
its melancholy, wistful smile, is suited rather to death and her 
sables. See — as we speak, in the middle of the moor, upon some 
poor trodden pathway, apparently a funeral train! Some dis- 
heartened peasant, who has laid by his futile mattock, quitted 
the crazy plough, dropped the blunted sickle. Black figures, 
in close procession, in the grey, cold hour of morning, hooded 
and shrouded in humble weeds. How it fills out the picture; 
how it accords with the minor scale ; how entirely it is approved 
by the imagination ! It is the right thing, the only thing one 
knows, to suit with this Russian moorland, where life is not 
encouraged, where death is all at home. It is — well, possibly it 



ST. PETERSBURG AND THE WAY THERE 7 

might be many more things, but we must stay our reflections, for 
a sapient member of the party has pointed out that it is not a 
funeral procession at all, but a row of peat-stacks — native to the 
moorland, too. 

And what else do we see? Every mile or two enormous 
heaps of pine-wood and silver birch, cut in blocks a foot long, 
and laid with marvellous precision — acres and acres of this cheap- 
est and costliest of fuels — cheapest because its price is but the 
blow of an axe, costliest because it leaves sterility, famine, and 
flood behind it. Each station is ramparted around with these 
wood-stacks, each river we cross is choked with huge barges 
carrying it away. And whenever the train stops we see, moving 
silently behind the crowd of uniforms, the peasants of Bulgaria 
and Servia and Austrian Poland — the same poverty, the same 
sackcloth and sheepskins, the same rope shoes, the same loaf of 
black bread. They prove the existence of a tie one did not sus- 
pect between the Balkan countries which Russia loves and which 
do not always love her. We see Vilna, where one June Napo- 
leon entered in triumph, and whence one December he fled from 
his own army, leaving 20,000 sick and five millions of francs be- 
hind; and where the last Polish revolution died when its leaders 
w^ere executed. We see Pskov, where Europe first touched 
hands with what has since become Russia, where the Duke of 
Moscow destroyed a republic, where Ivan the Terrible fled from 
an idiot saint, where Gustavus Adolphus with his army knocked 
at the walls in vain, where Peter the Great kept his cannons and 
his powder. And we see Gatchina, one of the summer residences 
of the Imperial Family, and where the best trout come from. 
Then, almost wdthout transition of suburbs, the train draws up 
in a plain, lead-coloured station, and we are in the city wdiich 
the great Tsar Peter built in the waters of the Neva and named 
after himself. 

It is a remarkable railway journey — from Charing Cross to 
St. Petersburg in fifty hours, with only one change of carriage 



8 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

where the gauge changes, with bed and board of the best, with 
never a single stop of more than five minutes, and such punctual- 
ity that, due at St. Petersburg at 2.45, the station clock is strik- 
ing three as we drive with our luggage out of the yard. This 
journey is one of many such owed by travellers to the enterprise 
which makes this imposing cross upon the map — from Calais 
to Constantinople, and from Gibraltar to Irkutsk. 

A iroika dashes down the Nevski Prospect, the horse in the 
shafts trotting desperately, the others galloping on either side, 
their heads bent outward. Over the housetops rise the five 
bulbous domes, like inverted balloons, that crown the church now 
standing where Alexander II. fell. At the corner of the great 
bazaar is a little votive chapel to the saint who caused people 
to subscribe so liberally to rebuild the bazaar when it was burned, 
and as they pass, the well-to-do cross themselves and the poor 
dof¥ their caps. All these are incongruities. They look as 
odd as a leather bottel would amid silver and cut-glass. They 
are bits of real Russia — St. Petersburg is a foreign city, and a 
hybrid one to boot. Any quarter of it would be at home in 
Paris or Potsdam or Pesth. Peter the Great built it in the Neva 
swamps as ^' a window toward Europe," in Algarotti's memor- 
able phrase; and that is precisely what it remains. For a long 
time every educated Russian wished to make his country like 
western Europe; he resented above all things being called un- 
civilised, and civilisation meant to him French architecture and 
English manners. St. Petersburg is the embodiment of this wish. 
Provincial Russians still hugely admire their capital, but if it were 
to be rebuilt now it would resemble Moscow and not Milan. The 
fashion of imitating the West has passed; to-day to be patriotic 
is to be Russian, and so far from following the mode of the out- 
side world, to wait confidently till the outside world shall learn 
that the Russian mode is better and shall lay aside its heathen- 
ism, its parliamentarianism, its socialism, the license it calls lib- 





CATHEDRAL OF ST. ISAAC, ST. PETERSBURG. 



ST. PETERSBURG 9 

erty, and all its other wickednesses, and walk in the only path 
of religious truth and social security. So to the Russian, St. 
Petersburg is no longer Russia, while to the visitor it is cosmo- 
politan and therefore, as a whole, uninteresting. 

I say, as a whole, for the city of Peter the Great and all his 
successors cannot fail to contain many things to arrest the at- 
tention. Its churches, for example, are the most splendid of 
any modern churches in the world — indeed their costliness is in 
curious contrast with their modernity. In other countries cathe- 
drals are magnificent through the faith and the munificence of 
men of old time; here our contemporaries have set their creed 
in gold and gems. St. Isaac's Cathedral, from whose magnificent 
dome the best view of the city is obtained, whose gloom hides 
untold wealth upon its altars, whose colossal steps are each formed 
of a single stone, whose four sides of great granite monoliths are 
unsurpassed, and whose pillars of malachite and lapis lazuli are 
unapproached elsewhere, was consecrated the year in which I 
was born. A semicircular colonnade leads from the Nevski to 
the cathedral of our wonder-working Lady of Kazan, where 
the name of the Almighty blazes in diamonds, where half a ton 
of silver marks an outburst of Cossack piety, where pearls and 
sapphires seem to have no value, so lavishly are they strewed, and 
it dates from 181 1. Wealth in Russia seems to pour itself to- 
ward the habitation and the decoration of religion. Any reason 
suffices for a new church. Of course, where Alexander II. fell 
a superb church is rising, and its dazzling group of blue and 
green and white and gold cupolas is visible from every part of 
the city. In its centre are the very paving-stones upon which 
he fell, and the soil stained with his blood. Such a solemn me- 
morial is natural and inevitable, but a fire at the market, and a 
generous popular subscription to rebuild it, is excuse for a highly 
decorated little chapel on the Nevski itself, before which innu- 
merable passers stop and pray, diverting the traffic like a boul- 
der in a stream. 



lo ALL THE RUSSIAS 

One church only, meagrely endowed in comparison with the 
rest, is profoundly rich in association. A spire like a needle rises 
almost from the Neva, and at its base are the heavy casemates 
where the water laps drearily forever at inscrutable dungeons 
behind — church and the dungeons aUke dedicated to St. Peter 
and St. Paul. The citadel is upon an island, where Peter's gen- 
erals first camped, and which he found good and made the focus 
of the city to be. Upon it is his cottage, a log-house of four 
rooms, now carefully protected by another structure built over 
and around it. Here is his dining-room, his reception-room, his 
dark little bedroom, the very chair in which he sat, the very 
objects he made. You. see nothing of the prison of which you 
have heard so much, except its walls upon the river and its dark 
water-gate, for as you drive to the cathedral through the land- 
gate the modern mint is before you, the church to your right, 
and a long row of single-storey barracks to your left. And it is 
useless to ask questions. Very few people know what passes 
within, and these few never open their lips. But the horror has 
departed from this place, for nowadays prisoners of State are 
carried to the fortress of Schliisselburg, also an island in the 
Neva, forty miles away. Concerning this prison absolute secrecy 
prevails. I made the acquaintance of an intimate relation of the 
Governor, and he assured me that never in the closest family 
talk had he ever heard a syllable concerning it. So far as silence 
goes, it is indeed a living grave, the stony replica of the closed 
lips of autocracy. But all the world may drive through the low 
red-brick gate of the citadel to the Cathedral of St. Peter and 
St. Paul, and gaze through its narrow gloom upon all the mould- 
ering flags of conquered enemies and all the rusting keys of sur- 
rendered towns. These are but poor things, however, to what 
lies below them — the long rows of square white marble tombs, 
where, each under the same gilt cross and with nothing but a 
name to mark the difference, repose forever all the Tsars, save 
one, of all the Russias, since Tsars and Russia were. 



ST. PETERSBURG 13 

Of this long line, two only impress their personality in St. 
Petersburg to-day. One, the first, the great Peter, who did 
everything, designed everything, foresaw everything. The other, 
the emancipator, whose blood stained the street twenty years 
ago, impressive because of the contents of one little room. At 
the Hermitage, once Catharine's pavilion, but since 1850 the 
magnificent home of the world-famous collection of pictures, you 
may see Peter in his habit as he lived. A life-size wax portrait 
model, sitting in his own chair, dressed in the very clothes he 
wore, grasping the sword given to him by that deposed ruler 
of Poland once called " the strong," shows you his great height 
and his vigilant black eyes. In a glass case is the yellow charger 
he rode on that July day at Pultava when he founded Russia 
upon the ruins of Sweden, and beside it, almost as big — for the 
moth-eaten handiwork of this early taxidermist must have shrunk 
pitifully since it bore that royal load — runs his favourite yellow 
hound. All around are hundreds of his instruments and lathes 
and tools, and the things those strong busy hands made with 
them. And an attendant, observing with pleased anticipation 
your great interest, selects from a group of walking-sticks his 
heavy iron staff, and catches it as it falls from your unready grasp, 
and then, placing a tall stick upright beside you, shows you the 
notch at Peter's height a foot above your head. 

Since Peter the Great foresaw so many things, it is possible 
enough that when he crushed the aboriginal frogs of the Neva 
marshes beneath his heel he foresaw the Island Parks too. The 
Neva, with its broad, slow, silver flood, stealing to the sea by 
many ways, holds netted certain flat islands, called Kamennoi and 
Yelagin, in its watery strands, and these have been laid out and 
planted with an art which worked hand in hand with nature. 
The result is a series of parks, among which summer villas, called 
datchas, nestle and sandy roads wind fancifully, but all with an 
artlessness of which other European parks have lost the secret. 
But with what a prodigahty it has been done, these smooth roads, 



14 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

these solid embankments to protect the edges of the lagoons, 
these miles of silver birches and firs and other graceful trees! 
Indeed, this is a reflection that rises often to one's lips in Russia, 
meaning not only what money — and money has always weltered 
forth — but what time, what labour, what tenacious cHnging to 
an ideal seen afar off! Flying along these soft roads come the 
Russian horses, beautiful black stallions, flecked with white foam, 
driven with outstretched arms by a coachman of Gargantuan 
size in his wadded gown of blue cloth. He calls out as he goes, 
he leans over his beasts, his narrow waistbelt of eastern silk em- 
phasises his enormous girth, the reins, half of leather and half 
of blue or orange webbing, flap their buckled sides upon the 
horses' flanks — he scorns a whip. The master or mistress of all 
this sits firmly back in the diminutive dark blue or green drosky 
— a light phaeton with tiny front wheels — and the big Orlofif 
plunges forward, his wooden arched collar framing his proud 
head, his flowing tail streaming out behind — it is the most famil- 
iar sight in St. Petersburg, and an exhilarating one. Suddenly, 
" B-r-r-r! " says the driver, the horse pulls up and you are at the 
Point, with one of the lovehest water-views in the world before 
you. From the end of the farthest island you gaze toward Kron- 
stadt down the Neva, so shallow in her vast width that only a 
few yachts flutter across her breast, for the steamers may not 
venture out of a dredged channel between close-set buoys. After 
the green shade of the woods and the little eye-like pools looking 
out of their seclusion, the open of blue sky seems enormous, the 
water is a silver floor, and something in this peep into the infinite 
— it may be the tumble of opalescent clouds piled upon the hori- 
zon — reminds you of the other great water-view of Europe, down 
the Sea of Marmora. To my eye, the island parks of Petersburg 
— they are within half an hour of the centre of the city — are 
the most beautiful town drive in Europe. 

But though the Neva brings beauty, it brings misery, too. 
Along its quays in the populous parts of the city are thousands 



ST. PETERSBURG 15 

of cellar-dwellings, where the poor live. When a certain wind 
blows back from the sea the river rises and floods these tene- 
ments, and the wretched inhabitants have to forsake them till 
the water subsides, when they return with their bits of furniture 
to their reeking homes. A paternal government, however, 
thoughtfully causes a gun to be fired from the citadel when the 
river is rising, and its boom across the waters warns the cellar- 
dwellers to escape. St. Petersburg, it is perhaps needless to add, 
is an unhealthy place, damp and depressing, and in summer, when 
water is low and sewage is high, the canals with which it is inter- 
sected smell horribly. Only in winter, when damp and other evil 
things are frozen solid, is it bracing and clean, and even then, 
you must remember, every window in every house is hermetically 
sealed, except for one air-hole. 

The little room I have spoken of as conveying the impression 
of the second personality is'in the Winter Palace. Here there 
is much to see. Beautiful rooms, halls huge and white, enamelled 
in pink or white marble, so delicate as to be lovely, although 
an imitation, and giving a sense of Hght and freshness not com- 
mon in palaces. Three thousand people can dance in the Winter 
Palace at one time; over two thousand people, after a ball, can 
sup. Never, in Europe, can there be a scene of more brilliance 
than this — every woman in extravagant loveliness, every man 
in uniform, most of them blazing with stars and medals, of which 
there are nowhere so many as here. But after endless march- 
ings through the countless chambers, great and small, from the 
Throne Room to the private apartments of visiting royalties, 
which seem in almost all the palaces of continental Europe to 
have been designed by the same architect and furnished by the 
same upholsterer, the ofificial with you knocks at a door and 
retires. The door is slowly opened by an old man with many 
medals — a grave, melancholy old man. He is the keeper of the 
private apartments of Alexander H., which have been sacredly 
preserved exactly as he left them. On Sunday morning, March 



i6 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

13, 1 88 1, the Tsar was writing in his room, smoking a cigarette. 
It was his custom to inspect some regiment on Sunday morn- 
ings, and on this day he was due at the parade of the marines 
in the Michael Riding School. Five times had the Nihilists tried 
to kill him, and at least twice they had nearly succeeded. They 
almost blew up the Imperial train, and they actually blew up the 
guard-room and dining-room of the Winter Palace and failed 
of their chief purpose only because the Imperial dinner had been 
arranged for half an hour later than usual, in order that a royal 
visitor. Prince Alexander of Hesse, might be present. The air 
was once more full of terrorist threats, and the Tsar's son and 
heir, and his most trusted adviser, begged him not to go to the 
inspection. But Alexander, brave and obstinate and fatalistic, 
was not to be deterred. He laid his half-smoked cigarette upon 
an ash-tray, picked up a loosely folded clean handkerchief from 
the table, slipped his little silver-plated, ivory-handled revolver 
into his pocket, buckled on his sword and left the room. An 
hour later he was carried back, fast bleeding to death, one leg 
shattered to the thigh, the other to the knee, and placed upon 
the narrow iron bed in the recess, and there he breathed his last. 
As the room was, so it remains. The half-smoked cigarette 
lies upon the ash-tray in a glass tube. The little revolver lies 
before the mirror. Upon each of the tables and several of the 
chairs is a loosely folded clean handkerdhief, for it was the Tsar's 
wish to have one of these always within reach of his hand. Here 
are his toilet articles — a plain small set of bottles and brushes, 
from a rusty morocco folding case, evidently bought in England 
before we invented the modern luxurious dressing-bag. It is all 
modest beyond belief, and the brushes are half worn. This was 
a monarch who did not care to spend any of his incalculable 
wealth upon personal luxuries. The walls of the room are cov- 
ered by bookcases, all quite full of books obviously read. Among 
them, just behind his chair, I noticed the two volumes of Dru- 
mont's La France Juive, showing signs of much handling. Op- 



ST. PETERSBURG 17 

posite the foot of the camp-bed hangs a portrait, rather crudely 
painted, of a little daughter who died, and below the portrait', 
neatly folded, lie the last frocks she wore, which her father kept 
always by him. It is all extraordinarily affecting. Had he lived, 
I could never by any chance have thus known his private Hfe 
and looked at his intimate belongings. I should have seen Alex- 
ander 11. in uniform, a tall figure, a composed, not intellectual 
face — seen him in those very clothes that are now in a glass case 
in a church — but he would have been covered with his great 
dignities, cased by the enormous loneliness of his position as an 
Emperor. I should never have known that the maroon-colored 
frock, dating from the time when children were most hideously 
clad of all, belonging to his little dead daughter, had to be spread 
upon a table in the rear of his study for him to come and look 
at, and a blue frock, too, which she was wearing when that pict- 
ure hanging above it was painted. I should not have seen 
the short iron bed, humbly draped in some Turkish stuff, neither 
rich nor costly, on which behind a bit of archway he could rest 
himself. He would have been merely the great remote Tsar, the 
Liberator of the Serfs, the suppressor of Poland, the war-maker 
against Turkey, the object of the Nihilists' bloodthirsty pursuit. 
But because he died a royal martyr, I may see him for the man 
he was, learn his little personal ways, look at what he carried 
in his pockets, know how simple a life he chose to live inside 
his outer shell of impenetrable pomp, and be permitted to dis- 
cern how he worshipped the memory of his little dead child. 

By more vivid means still, however, is the memory of Alex- 
ander H. nourished in St. Petersburg. In three places is his 
actual shed blood to be seen. As I stood by his bed, my own 
guide, taking advantage of the old oflhciars back being turned, 
lifted the coverlet and pointed silently to the broad rusty stain 
upon the faded linen. The act was an offence, and I reproved 
him sharply. Again, in a glass case by the altar of the Cathedral 
of the Transfiguration is the uniform Alexander wore upon the 



i8 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

day of his death, and the scabbard of his sword bears a wide 
splash of rusty red. Finally, the very paving stones and soil 
upon which his torn body lay and bled have been preserved and 
will remain forever in the gorgeous Memorial Church of the 
Resurrection, built over them. His descendants have indeed 
determined that here, too, the populace, as Antony would have 
it do in Rome, shall mark the blood of Caesar. 

Far more than churches and palaces and fortresses, the little 
daily habits of a people, the commonplaces of their life, tell of 
their character and predict their future. Here, then, are a few 
commonplaces of the Russian capital — trifles too often beneath 
the notice of stately chroniclers. 

What strikes the visitor first in St. Petersburg? The gentle 
manners of the police. The very name of the Russian police 
suggests terror to the Western ear — men haled from their beds, 
midnight trials, dungeons, all the familiar setting of the melo- 
drama. The Russian street police, at any rate, are the antithesis 
of this. One of them, looking like a soldier because of his mili- 
tary uniform, sabre, and, at night, revolver, stands at every cross- 
ing and at every hundred yards in the busy thoroughfares. He 
directs the traffic like his London brother in blue; like him, he 
is angry when a vehicle takes the wrong side. When a cart comes 
along with the driver in a half-drunken sleep from too much 
vodka, the policeman pulls him of¥ and sets him to walking by 
his team. He directs lost wayfarers, he helps in any accident, 
he reads Russian addresses for me and tells me where to find 
them, and all with perfect good temper and unruffled calm. So 
far as one can judge from externals he is a model policeman. 
And, as a matter of fact, it is not this gorodovoi who does the 
mysterious and despotic work of which the Western world hears 
so much. He cannot arrest you without a warrant; he cannot 
conceal from you of what you are accused; he cannot expel you 
from the city at his pleasure. That is the work of another branch 
of the police, whose story is too long to be told here. 



ST. PETERSBURG 19 

The next thing that catches the eye of the stranger is the 
universal custom, except in the case of the most expensive shops, 
of decorating the outside with pictures of everything sold within. 
The tailor's shop has elaborate pictures of coats and trousers, 
the ironmonger depicts saws and pincers and hammers and locks, 
the fruiterer every kind of fruit, the provision merchant bread 
and sausages and cheese. Why? Partly, of course, like all adver- 
tisements, to catch the eye, but chiefly because the majority 
of potential customers cannot read, and would not know what 
the shopkeeper offered if he did not tell them pictorially. This 
is a trifle, but it is a significant one. 

The costliness of Russian life is also a curious revelation. Rus- 
sia contains probably a larger proportion of very poor people 
than any country except China, yet St. Petersburg is the most ex- 
pensive city I have ever visited. To begin with, every house and 
hotel contains a swarm of servants, and each one expects a tip. 
The man who takes your hat and coat at a private house thinks 
fivepence little enough; if you give half-a-crown to the attendant 
who performs the same modest service for you at a great ofTficial's 
he shows no sign of excessive gratitude. The tips of a wealthy 
Russian to a waiter at a good restaurant are enormous. At the 
Hotel d'Europe, where I made the mistake of stopping on my 
first visit, a room on the third floor costs thirteen shillings a day, 
and a closed carriage to take you to dinner ten minutes' drive 
away cannot be had for less than twenty-six shillings. Similarly 
you find sixpence charged on the bill for a few sheets of hotel 
note-paper of the cheapest kind, and a bath costs three-and-six- 
pence. A fortune awaits the man w^ho will " run " a hotel in St. 
Petersburg on modern lines, where, if you pay high, at least you 
will get comfort and attention, without miserable extortions. 
Meanwhile, the home-like old Hotel de France is where you 
find tout Petersboiirg. 

One expects to find Russia overrun with soldiers, her capital 
like Berlin for its masses of troops, but more so. Yet if you 



20 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

chance to see the guard marching up the Embankment to the 
Bank of England, and a troop of horse-guards riding up St. 
James's Street, you have possibly seen more soldiers any day in 
London than in St. Petersburg. There are innumerable ofhcers 
about, but the private soldier is almost an uncommon figure. 
And at first you take for officers scores of men who are nothing 
of the kind. For nine-tenths of the middle classes wear a uni- 
form. Uniform, in fact, is the Russian's passion; it stamps him 
as a member of the governing class. To be a plain civilian is 
to be nothing. To begin with, there is, of course, the almost 
infinite variety of military and naval uniforms; then all the police 
and gendarmes; then all the officials connected in any way with 
the Court; then every individual, from the station-master to 
the window-cleaner, who has to do with the railways; then all 
the dvorniks, or porters who do police duty day and night out- 
side every house; then the postmen, the tramway men and the 
street-cleaners. Any of these may be taken for a soldier by the 
ignorant visitor. But there is another huge class, or series of 
classes, which wears uniform in Russia. The nobility has its 
uniform, but is the only class which, possessing one, does not 
usually wear it. Every student of the University wears a military 
uniform, and every boy at school, down to the youngsters as 
high as your walking-stick. Every graduate of a technical school 
— mining engineers, civil engineers, architects,' etc. — has the 
right, which he generally exercises, to wear a uniform for the rest 
of his life. Every member of all the public offices has a uniform. 
Since such an astonishing proportion of the well-to-do popula- 
tion is thus attired more or less like a soldier, it is easy to under- 
stand how it comes to be so undignified to be in civil dress. Of 
course, nobody living — except perhaps a tailor or two — knows 
all these uniforms and what they mean. A dozen times I have 
asked an educated Russian companion what a certain uniform 
denoted, and he confessed he had not the least notion. But to 
the wearers they mean a little authority, a little more touching 



ST. PETERSBURG 21 

of the cap, the excuse for a more commandmg accent. And to 
the foreigner they mean two things : first, an officialdom which 
both indicates and explains so great a lack of private initiative; 
and second, a ceaseless source of embarrassment, from the dan- 
ger of exhibiting your railway ticket to a major-general, or mak- 
ing your most deferential bow to the guard. 

St. Petersburg is the only city I have seen apparently without 
such a thing as a place where alcoholic drinks alone are sold. 
In a restaurant you can order a glass of beer or of vodka, but the 
'' bar " or the public-house or the American '' saloon " is non- 
existent. The only exception I saw w^as an " automatic buffet " 
where you get any drink on the penny-in-the-slot principle. It 
was enormously popular, but it also sold excellent food automati- 
cally, and called itself '' Quisisana." (I puzzled over this name 
a long time until it occurred to me to divide it into three ItaHan 
words.) In a shop, however, where cigarettes and liquors are sold 
I have several times seen poor children come with an empty 
bottle, place a few coppers on the counter and take vodka home. 
The consumption of alcohol in Russia is comparatively small per 
head, but there is a good deal of drunkenness — much more in 
public than in other countries. The Russian is by nature a genial 
and company-loving man, and on religious holidays and public 
fetes these virtues are his undoing. The well-to-do Russian has 
a peculiar passion in connection with his meals — namely, to hear 
the music of a huge " orchestrion " or mechanical organ, with 
drums, cymbals, and every imaginable instrument. No self-re- 
specting restaurant is without one of these monstrous and costly 
erections, wound by hand or moved by electricity, and they play 
with the briefest intermissions the whole day. With one excep- 
tion, all that I heard needed tuning, and dinner — even when it 
is so excellent as Russian food in good restaurants ahvays is — 
under such conditions is apt to be indigestible. 

Two more quaint little details. Nobody in Russia wears 
woollen underclothing — always linen or cotton. Moreover, the 



22 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

foreigner who brings the underclothing he wears at home in 
winter, because Russia is a very cold country, is sorry somebody 
did not condescend to tell him this fact before. The explanation 
is simple: indoors it is always hot, and out of doors the Russian 
never ventures, even in a mild autumn, without an overcoat. 
To wear thick woollen underclothing you must keep your houses 
cool. The other detail is that in this country where everything 
is strictly prescribed by law, you make your bargain with a cab 
for every journey according to distance, weather, the quality of 
the vehicle, and the necessity of the driver. At the hotel door 
or in front of the cab-rank you call out the place to which you 
wish to be driven, and the drivers shout back what they will 
take. If you are a foreigner, they begin by demanding ten times 
what they will take; if you are a Russian, twice the proper sum. 
Several minutes of oriental bargaining are a necessary preliminary 
to a five minutes' drive. In St. Petersburg the police invented a 
table of fares and had it affixed, as in England, to every cab, but 
the drivers repudiated it, and after several months it has become 
a dead letter. The isvostchik alone has vanquished autocracy. 

But no matter how many new things, big and little, have 
impressed themselves upon you in the political capital of Russia, 
one, as you look back, outweighs all the rest. It is the one which 
caused even Voltaire to say, '' Peter was born, and Russia w^as 
formed." Not in name only, but in real fact, is Petersburg the 
City of Peter. In his dark cathedral, amid surrendered keys and 
captured flags, he sleeps for ever, but his monument is all around 
him, and everything bears eloquent testimony to his marvellous 
prevision. Every site seems to have been chosen by him — every 
need of the Russia of to-day to have been anticipated by him. 
Still, in all your wonder at his foresight and his energy, you can- 
not live long in St. Petersburg without coming to the conclusion 
that he made one mistake — in building the city at all. His win- 
dow toward Europe should have been in another part of the 
great Russian wall. 



CHAPTER II 



THE TWO MOSCOWS, AND A FEW REFLECTIONS 



ST. PETERSBURG might be anywhere, and without turn- 
ing one's self into a guide-book (precisely what I wish 
to avoid) there is hardly anything in it to describe. My impres- 
sions of it have only 
covered a few pages; 
but it would be easy 
to write a volume 
about Moscow. Here 
is Russia indeed — 
every side of her faith- 
fully represented. The 
magnificent w^hite rail- 
way station, with 
'' God save the Tsar " 
in permanent gas-let- 
ters over the portal, is 
where the Great Si- 
berian train starts 
for Vladivostok and 
Port Arthur. These 




Gate and Chapel of the Old City, Moscow. 



strange, 



dark -robed 

men, sitting by themselves at the bourse, turbaned or fur-hatted, 
are Russian subjects from Central Asia. Russia is a great man- 
ufacturing country now; Moscow is one of the manufacturing 
cities of the world. Napoleon looms large in Russian history: 
from those low hills a few miles away he looked down upon the 
splendid prey he was about to seize; through this gate he entered 

23 



24 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

the citadel; in that church his horses were stabled. A Romanoff 
Tsar rules Russia; this is the house where the first Romanoff to 
become a Tsar lived, as a simple seigneur; and here are the tombs 
of all the Ruriks and Romanoffs who ruled when St. Petersburg 
was a swamp. Russia is a theocracy; Moscow is the holy city, 
consecrated and consecrating. Under whatever aspect Russia of 
to-day presents herself to you, in Moscow you may find it em- 
bodied, for Russia sprang from Moscow and the Dukes of Mus- 
covy laid her foundation-stones. 

Since the Coronation of 1894 everybody has read of the w^on- 
derful churches of Moscow, of its brilliant colouring, of its his- 
toric interest, of the piety of its people. Yet I cannot refrain from 
dwelling for a moment on this, for Moscow produces a unique 
and an ineffaceable impression. There is no city in the world like 
it. The Imperial City in the centre of Peking, seen from the 
walls where Marco Polo's instruments stood until the Germans 
purloined them, has something of its blue and green and gold. 
Its fantastic architecture recalls the eaves and the watch-towers 
of Korea. Its narrow Eastern streets remind one of Sarajevo. 
Its holy images, literally innumerable, and the pious passer, elab- 
orately bowing and crossing himself again and again, suggest 
Lourdes at pilgrimage time. Its streets paved with cobble-stones 
as big as your fist, over which the droschkies rattle and bang till 
your ears are deaf and your throat is sore, bring back to memory 
Belgrad, the worst-paved town in the world, where you may quite 
well fracture your skull in a drive down the main street in a closed 
carriage. But as a whole Moscow is like nothing but Moscow — 
a city apart, exempt from comparison, beyond description. 

The second capital of Russia has a population of a million, 
it is the commercial centre, and the greatest Russian manufactur- 
ing town, and it has four hundred and fifty churches; but to the 
visitor Moscow is the Kremlin, and the Kremlin is Moscow. The 
remaining forty-nine fiftieths of the city do not count. The 
learned have not yet agreed what '' Kremlin " means — probably 



THE TWO MOSCOWS 



25 



fortress, or Acropolis, or central official quarter, for many other 
towns have one. Actually it is an isosceles triangle, one side rest- 
ing upon the river Moskva, and all three marked by enormous 
pyramidal walls of pale pink brick, broken at intervals by square 
watch-towers, and pierced by five gates. One of these leads from 
the river — a prison or secret gate — and everybody who passes 
under another, the Gate of the Redeemer, so called from the 
miracle-working portrait over it, must remove his hat. The best 




A Gate of the Old City, Moscow. 



view is from the Kamenny Bridge, and is shown in my photo- 
graph. Without colour, however, the Kremlin loses half its 
charm. 

A Russian wit has said that Moscow is remarkable for two 
things — a cannon which has never been fired, and a bell which 
has never been tolled. And these are perhaps the two most 
striking single objects. On the way through the Kremlin, you 
pass in the arsenal yard an enormous quantity of bronze cannon, 



26 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

neatly disposed in groups. Towering above them is the " Tsar 
Cannon," a huge and highly decorated piece of bright green 
bronze, weighing forty tons, with a bore of eighteen inches, cast 
in 1586. It is merely decorative, for a hatful of powder would 
blow it to bits. A hundred yards farther on is a colossal bell on 
the ground, weighing 200 tons. While it was being raised to the 
tower in 1737 it was broken, and the eleven-ton piece knocked 
out of it lies, by its side. These cannon remind me of a significant 
little incident. As everybody knows. Napoleon brought 800 can- 
non into Russia with him, and took nine out again. Of the re- 
mainder, 365 are here, together with many more from Austria 
and Prussia and Italy and other enemies. In a glass frame is a 
brass tablet telling this proud story. We stopped to read it — 
a party of four, including a guide — when instantly a sentry ran 
up with fixed bayonet and sharply ordered us to move on. Gath- 
erings in the street are not permitted in Russia. He was, of 
course, an ignorant man, too zealously executing orders he did 
not understand, but the incident tells its story. There is also 
something peculiarly absurd in visitors being forbidden to read 
a tablet set up in a public place to tell of Russian victories. 

Moscow is, of course, redolent of Napoleon's gigantic failure. 
Three hours' drive from the city are the Sparrow Hills, from 
which he obtained his first view of the splendid pillage that awaited 
his impatient legions. If Moscow eighty-seven years ago looked 
from those hills as it looks to-day, his heart, sated as it was with 
conquest, must have beat high. Through the Troitski Gate of 
the Kremlin he entered next day. In this tiny Byzantine arch- 
roofed room of the old palace he slept. One day later he climbed 
this narrow winding stair to this little balcony to watch Moscow 
burning. By this Red Staircase he led his glittering Marshals 
into the Palace. In this Church of the Saviour the forage of his 
cavalry was stored above the relics of the first Christian martyr 
in Russia. And from here to the frontier stretches the long nar- 
row cemetery of his troops. 



THE TWO MOSCOWS 



27 



The whole Kremhn is wonderfully picturesque. Its broad 
castellated brick walls are pierced by deep arched gateways and 
crowned by quaint towers whose red sides and green tiled roofs 
emerge from m.asses of foliage. High above all is the tower of 
Ivan Veliki (an Englishman, by name John Villiers), from which 
the whole city is spread out before you like the illuminated page 
of some old missal. Here is a glimpse of the garden of a mon- 




Women in the Sunday Market, Moscow. 



astery which once boasted 16,000 servants, pretty red balconies 
running round a square of embowered walks. A few steps away is 
the never-to-be-forgotten Cathedral of the xA^ssumption, in shape 
as its original was built six centuries ago, dazzling w^ith gold, 
frescoed from floor to cupola, claiming upon its highest altar a 
piece of the Saviour's robe, the spot where a man crowns himself 
Tsar of All the Russias, and, in the eyes and in the profoundest 



28 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

convictions of a hundred millions of his subjects, rises thereby 
to something of the Divinity he invokes. It is an area of infinite 
interest, and he must be dull indeed who is not brought to a 
standstill more than once by the pressure of his own reflections. 
My object here, however, is not to re-describe well-known sights 
and places, but to seek, in both familiar and unfamiliar scenes, 
the underlying facts and motives and meanings which go to 
make the Russia of to-day, and from which the Russia of to- 
morrow may be inferred. Therefore I leave the Kremhn and old 
Moscow to the guide-books and many previous travellers. 

To most people, even well-travelled and well-read people, 
Moscow is only the quaint old capital of a picturesque and mys- 
terious faith — the Holy City of Russia, where Tsars are made. 
It is this, but it is also something very different, which the West- 
ern World has not yet begun to appreciate. It is a great manu- 
facturing city, the focus of a national industrial development 
already beginning to influence the rriarkets of the world and des- 
tined some day to affect the fate of nations. We have glanced 
at Old Moscow, but New Moscow means cotton-spinning mills 
which have paid seventy or eighty per cent. It is an extraordinary 
— a startling juxtaposition, but the one thing is not less real than 
the other. In manufacture, as well as in history and religious 
tradition, Moscow is the heart of Russia. The old quarter, inside 
the walls, known as the '' Chinese Town " — the only Chinese in 
it are a few tea merchants — is packed close with business offices 
and banks. The streets hum with the steps of hurrying buyers 
and sellers. At noon the Exchange is crowded with brokers and 
merchants, a remarkable proportion of them speaking German, 
with a sprinkling of Chinese, Persians, and strange faces and head- 
gear from Turkestan. When you drive out to stand with Napo- 
leon's ghost on the hills outside, a walled monastery, brilliant in 
colour, quaint in architecture, thrilling in story, lies midway be- 
tween you and the city. By its side is a great factory, with huge 
disfiguring chimneys. All around Moscow, at distances varying 



THE TWO MOSCOWS 



29 



from two to six hours by train, are great spinning and weaving 
and cotton-printing mills. Spinning in Russia has advanced with 
astonishing strides. In 1886 there were already over two million 
spindles in the Moscow district, and as many more in other 




The Cathedral of St. Basil the Beatified, Moscow — Sixteenth Century. 

Napoleon ordered his soldiers to " destroy that Mosque," but they used it as a cavalry stable instead. 



places.'^ From 1880 to 1889 the output of the cotton manu- 
facturing industry rose from 240 to 487 millions of roubles. Since 

* An official statement for 1893, the latest I can find, says : " At the present time 
the number of spindles in Russia may be estimated at 6,000,000, and the number of 
looms at 200,000, taking 300 days per annum of ten working hours." 



30 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

then the production has steadily risen, though not of course at 
this astonishing rate. The demand for cotton goods is practically 
unlimited, for the entire population of Russia wears it, while new 
markets in Central Asia and the Far East are opening rapidly. 
These Eastern markets are due to the sagacious character of 
Russian foreign policy, but the supply has of course grown up 
within the industrial paradise of an absolutely prohibitive tariff. 

Not long ago in Moscow there were English foremen in most 
mills. Now almost all of these are gone. They were the objects of 
great jealousy, and their nationality had this disadvantage, that 
when trouble arose with the workmen, the immediate object of the 
hostility of the latter was their direct chief, and the situation be- 
came much more complicated if he happened to be a foreigner. 
Such troubles are by no means rare, and in one of them an Eng- 
Hshman was killed a few years ago. Indeed, among the subjects 
of ofBcial consideration in Russia to-day the familiar one of the 
relations of capital and labour is assuming an ever more perplex- 
ing, not to say disquieting, aspect. From the mill-owners' point 
of view the most difficult problem, however, is that of fuel. Hith- 
erto wood has been chiefly used, but its price is growing prohibi- 
tive. Already it costs £3 or more for four tons, and it does not 
go half as far as good coal. English coal is costly, coal from the 
Donetz district in the south has to bear 800 miles of railw^ay trans- 
port, and naphtha residues, which are so largely employed for all 
kinds of steam-raising, are rising steadily in price. Official com- 
fort is given by the statement that coal will probably be found 
under the Moscow district itself, but meanwhile the cost of fuel, 
and therefore of power, stands in the way of many a new industrial 
enterprise. 

One other matter in connection with cotton in Russia deserves 
mention. Most of the raw material comes from America, and 
a considerable quantity from Egypt. But in Turkestan, Russia 
has come into possession of a cotton-growing country of great 
possibilities. Last year, a Moscow merchant told me, 350,000 



THE TWO MOSCOWS 



31 



American bales came from there, and this, it must be remembered, 
is favoured by escaping the heavy duty which foreign cotton has 
to pay. An official publication before me contains this state- 
ment: " In the near future probably the greater part of the Rus- 
sian cotton industry will be suppHed with native raw material." 
But as all the cotton of Turkestan is dependent upon irrigation, 
and capital is scarce there, the Moscow spinners do not yet share 




The Kremlin, Moscow, from the Kamenny Bridge. 



this optimistic hope. Meanwhile, here is a little story, which 
may interest Lancashire. A prominent and wealthy Moscow 
producer of cotton goods is exhibiting, with ostensible indigna- 
tion, but really with much natural pride, a piece bearing an exact 
imitation of his own trade mark. His name is slightly altered, 
but the rest, including his many medals from exhibitions, with his 
name correctly spelled upon them, is there. This piece was man- 



32 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

ufactured in England and sent to him by his agent in Persia. So, 
at least, everybody says. I did not succeed in seeing it. 

There is nothing so interesting in Russia at this moment as 
the industrial development which has already gone so far, and 
is without doubt going so much farther. It is a momentous de- 
velopment. Russia, with great aggregations of capital in middle- 
class hands, alongside an impoverished nobility; Russia, with her 
fields, Hke our o.wn, depleted of labour, which has gone to the 
factories and the towns; Russia, with the character of her masses, 
upon whom alone rests the mighty and complicated fabric of her 
Church and State, essentially changed; Russia, with her colossal 
mineral wealth in full exploitation; Russia, ever more nearly self- 
sufficing and more independent of the Western World; Russia, 
pushing her railways, building her factories and opening her mines 
right out into the heart of China and the centre of Central Asia, 
while she is deUberately ringing India round with her net of rail- 
ways — this is the Russia of the future brought to mind by a few 
days spent among the merchant princes of Moscow. 

The Russian has an affection for things which are new, there- 
fore when he enters the great Square of the Kremlin his enthu- 
siasm vents itself upon the gorgeous green and gold memorial 
of Alexander III. The foreigner, on the other hand, though he 
is charmed with the towers on the wall embowered in trees, de- 
lighted with the quaint monastery and the nunnery where the 
Tsaritsas are buried, dazzled by the treasury, and duly impressed 
by the Great Palace, is not halted by emotion until he finds him- 
self in the painted gloom and amid the buried patriarchs of the 
little Cathedral of the Assumption, " fraught with recollections, 
teeming with worshippers, bursting with tombs and pictures from 
pavement to cupola," as Dean Stanley said. But his emotion 
is not for these. Then it is because the Tsar is crowned amid 
these " infinite riches in a Httle room "? Not at all. It is because 
the Tsar crowns himself there. He is so incomparably greater 



THE TWO MOSCOWS :^s 

than all other men that nobody but himself can hallow and ordain 
him King. So exalted and remote and sacred is he that not even 
the chief servant of God is high enough to place the crown upon 
his brow. Therefore, in the holiest spot of the Holy City, amid 
all the pomp of the living and all the solemnity of the dead, sur- 
rounded by the royalty of the world, while bells clash and cannon 
roar and multitudes throng without, the hereditary heir of the 
Romanoffs — though but a trace of real Romanoff blood is left — 
crowns and consecrates himself Emperor and Autocrat of all the 
Russias, and — for the whole list is well worth recalHng — of Mos- 
cow, of Kiev, of Vladimir, of Novgorod; Tsar of Kazan, of 
Astrakhan, of Poland, of Siberia, of Kherson-Taurida, of Grusi; 
Gosudar of Pskov; Grand Duke of Smolensk, of Lithuania, of 
Volynia, of Podolia and of Finland; Prince of Esthonia, of 
Libonia, of Kurland; of Semigalia, of the Samoyeds, of Bielos- 
tok, of Korelia, of Foer, of Ingor, of Perm, of Viatka, of Bulgaria, 
and of other countries; Master and Grand Duke of the Lower 
Countries in Novgorod, of Tchernigov, of Riazan, of Polotsk, 
of Rostov, of Yaroslav, of Vieloselsk, of Udork, of Obodsk, 
of Kondisk, of Vitelsk, of Mstilav, and of all the countries of the 
North; Master Absolute of Iversk, of Kastalnisk, of Kabardinsk, 
and of the territory of Armenia; Sovereign of the Mountain 
Princes of Tcherkask; Master of Turkestan, Heir Presumptive 
of Norway, and Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, of Stormarne, of 
Dithmarschen, and of Oldenburg. And it is sober truth, as I 
have said, that to the majority of the people who live in these 
places the man who thus crowns himself in the House of God 
becomes thereby something more than human — a semi-divine 
person. One is reminded of the vigil of Festus: 

— those bright forms 
We clothe with purple, crown, and call to thrones, 
Are human, but not his ; those are but men 
Whom other men press round and kneel before — 
Those palaces are dwelt in by mankind ; 



26 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

Higher provision is for him you seek 
Amid our pomp and glories : see it here ! 
Behold earth's paragon ! Now, raise thee, clay ! 

There is nothing Hke it in the world; probably no such claim 
has ever been put forth elsewhere as is regularly made in this 
church when Tsar succeeds Tsar — certainly no such claim has 
ever been so widely and so sincerely allowed. And to understand 
Russia it is absolutely necessary to appreciate this fact. Unless 
you realize that in Russia the Tsar is everything, Hterally every- 
thing; that not only is his will law but that it is also heaven- 
inspired right; that his land and his subjects are his to dispose 
of wholly as he will — I am speaking, of course, of the masses of 
the people — you will not grasp the fundamental condition of Rus- 
sia to-day. A well-known story tells that in a Russian battle not 
so long ago, the artillery, urgently needed in front to save the 
day, was stopped by a deep ditch. The soldiers thereupon flung 
themselves in until the ditch was full, and the artillery galloped 
over their bodies. The incident, w^hether fact or fiction, illus- 
trates the relation of the common people of Russia to their Sov- 
ereign. As you go higher in the scale the fact remains, but on a 
dififerent basis. Of^cial rank — tchin — is the standard of position 
— a greater or less tchin determines a man's honour and influence, 
and of course all conceivable tchin culminates in the Tsar. If 
you have not yourself a high tchin, you must be " protected " by 
somebody who has. Officials of high rank will hardly deign to 
notice you at one minute, and the next they are wholly at your 
service, if they have learned that you are well " protected.'* And 
in the highest society of all, whatever views it may privately hold 
and express, the Tsar, as the source of promotion and the foun- 
tain of honours and emoluments, dwells alone upon the heights. 

In material things it is the same. I was once discussing with 
a Russian administrator the military capabilities of the Trans- 
Siberian Railway, and I remarked that there would not be rolling- 
stock enough to convey masses of troops in a short time. " Every 



THE TWO MOSCOWS 



37 



engine and carriage in Russia would be put there if necessary," 
was the reply. " But," I objected, '' that would disorganize the 
whole commerce of the country, and bring tens of thousands to 
ruin." '' You don't understand," answered this official; '' if the 
Tsar gave the word to take every railway carriage in Russia and 




The Kremlin Square and Memorial of Alexander III., Moscow. 



run it across the Siberian Railway and throw it into the China 
Sea at the other end, who, I should Hke to know, would prevent 
it? " * The influence of the throne is increasing rather than 
diminishing, for I heard many complaints from educated Rus- 

* "To a Russian no obstacle is unsurmountable when his Tsar commands." M. 
de Witte, in his Report to H. M. the Emperor on the Budget of the Empire for 1900. 



38 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

sians that certain Ministers of State were taking their proposals 
direct to the Tsar, whose signature made them irrevocably law, 
instead of submitting them first, as is customary, to the Council 
of Ministers. The Tsar himself determined to build the Trans- 
Siberian Railway; it will cost a hundred miUions sterling. Tradi- 
tion alone is more powerful than autocracy; if it were not, the 
world would have even greater reason to admire the aspirations 
of Nicholas IL A Tsar cannot command a pohcy which no 
Minister will undertake to carry out; he is unable to control and 
helpless to set aside a mass of statistics or unfavourable informa- 
tion which they lay before him. Sometimes, as in the case of 
Alexander III., he is deliberately overwhelmed with details in 
order that he may not espouse principles. Thus a Tsar might 
possibly not be able to preserve peace against all the facts and 
warnings and arguments brought to bear upon him. But he 
could declare war, by a word, at any time. And it is to the ever- 
lasting honour of Alexander III. that he set his face so stead- 
fastly against war, waged either by himself or by others, and of 
Nicholas II. , that his first great act should be to call a Confer- 
ence of Peace, although some of his Ministers, both by private 
word and official deed, made it almost a mockery. 

From ruler to ruled is a natural transition, and especially so 
in Russia, where there is no middle class in which the two quali- 
ties coalesce. Indeed this is the most striking aspect of Rus- 
sian society : at the top, the Imperial family, surrounded by the 
nobility; at the bottom, the '' common people." Russian Hfe 
abounds in incidents which illustrate a personal sympathy between 
high and low existing in no other society. I read, for instance, 
that one day a miserably ragged man begged an alms at a rail- 
way station from a prosperous-looking passenger. At that mo- 
ment a General — and it must be remembered that in Russia a 
General is a very great personage — with his pretty young wife 
came upon the platform. " I will give you five roubles," said the 
man heartlessly, '' if you will kiss the General's wife." The beg- 



THE TWO MOSCOWS 39 

gar went straight to the lady, fell upon his knees, and told her 
of his plight. She listened, and then, getting her husband's per- 
mission, held out her cheek for him to kiss. The Novoye Vremya, 
which told the story, added truly that such magnanimity could 
only occur in Russia. One day I remarked to a Russian friend 
with whom I was dining what an excellent servant he had. 
" Yes,'* he said, '' and there is also something remarkable about 
him that you don't see. That man has been kissed by a Tsar." 
''When — why?" I asked in astonishment. " Some years ago," 
replied my friend, " he was on sentry duty in the garden of an 
Imperial palace, and in the early Easter morning the Emperor 
came out alone. ' Voskress Christos!' — 'Christ is risen!' said 
the sentry, as custom prescribes, and it is also prescribed that 
you shall salute with a kiss the first person who tells you the 
good news. Such customs in Russia are binding upon Emperor 
or peasant aHke." It was a charming story, and well illustrates 
the comparative nearness of top and bottom in Russian life. 

The development of industrialism with its rapidly made fort- 
unes is changing this condition so far as the large towns are con- 
cerned, but it still remains true of the country as a whole. What 
impressions of the Russian people does one gather from several 
months' travel through the whole empire — a journey of twenty 
thousand miles? The first thing that attracts your attention in 
the two capitals themselves, is the curious detail I have already 
mentioned, namely, that the shops which offer wares to the peo- 
ple do so, not in words, as with us, but with pictures. I noticed 
the same thing later in going over barracks. In one large frame, 
for instance, is a series of '* penny dreadful " pictures, showing 
all the duties of a sentry — what the good sentry does if a fire 
breaks out, if a burglar is seen entering a house, if a citizen is 
attacked, if a sportsman comes shooting birds near a powder- 
magazine, and so on. Very few of the soldiers can read,* and this 

*The official report for 1896 showed that out of every 100 recruits an average of 
28.4 could write, and 71.6 could not write. 



40 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



is the only way to impart information. In a class-room at another 
barracks was a schoolmaster teaching the letters of the alphabet 
on a blackboard to a large number of men. '' This is the class 
for me to join," I remarked, to the great glee of these good- 
tempered grown-up children. 

The Russian people, then, is illiterate, in the strict sense of the 
word. And millions upon millions of people who read no books 




Broken Down on the Steppe. 



and no newspapers, write and receive no letters, must inevitably 
be the helpless victims of superstition and prejudice. This is, 
of course, the fact. Russia is the home of more religious manias 
and crazy notions than could be enumerated. Not a month passes 
without some almost incredible instance of religious fanaticism. 
The end of the world is a constantly recurring belief. The horrible 
skoptsi, whose practices one cannot more nearly describe than 
by saying that they carry out literally the exhortation, " If thine 



THE TWO MOSCOWS 41 

eye offend thee, pluck it out," are represented all over Russia, 
and in spite of the severest measures the police cannot stop their 
abominable propaganda. It is natural to the Russian peasant 
to take the scripture literally. In May of this year a man named 
Ivan Plotnikof of Bielovodsk, in the government of Kharkov, 
begged a book to teach him to " live in truth." He was given a 
Gospel, read Mark v. 29, and was admitted to the hospital, hav- 
ing chopped his hand off with an axe, after failing to gouge 
out his eye. The Dukhobortsi, too, the superior peasants who 
left Russia, largely with Tolstoy's help, rather than perform mili- 
tary service, found the laws of Canada as contrary to their peculiar 
tenets as those of Russia. The government allotment of land, a 
correspondent wrote, was opposed to thfeir conviction that all 
land should belong to the community. They refuse to accept 
the marriage law, claiming that the only proper marriage is that 
brought about by mutual moral affection, and they cannot con- 
sent to recognise the right of authorities to regulate such mat- 
ters. The divorce law also conflicts with their idea of free love. 
If parties find their union not contracted through the pure feeling 
of love, they have the right, it is urged, to divorce themselves. 
And the registration of births and deaths is objected to, because 
God knows all about them. The Russian authorities are entitled 
to more sympathy than they receive, considering what strange 
millions they have to deal with. A friend told me of a travelling 
impostor he had seen, who went from village to village offering, 
for a small fee, to show some hairs from the head of the Virgin 
Mary. One person at a time was admitted, a small parcel was 
produced and many wrappings taken off in succession, until in 
the last paper of all the visitor was invited to gaze upon the 
miraculous hairs. The paper was quite empty and the peasant 
would aver that he saw nothing. Then the impostor would sor- 
rowfully explain that the hairs were invisible to sinful eyes, and 
that only the pious could see them. In order to escape the re- 
proach, his customers would loudly and proudly assert that they 



42 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

saw them clearly, and so he did a brisk trade. The Russian Gov- 
ernment is anxious to change its old Gregorian Calendar to that of 
the rest of the world (the Russian date is now thirteen days be- 
hind our own), but it cannot do so, because the peasants would be 
furious if the favourite saints were robbed of their proper birth- 
days. Sunday, by the way, is a person to the Russian lower classes. 
Poverty and illiteracy naturally go hand in hand. In no 
other great country of the world is poverty — monotonous, re- 
signed poverty — to so great an extent the national characteristic 
of the people. The only parallels I know are in some of the 
Balkan States. At almost any point in rural Russia you might 
think yourself in the interior of Servia or Bulgaria, except that 
even in these countries the poor peasant seems not quite so poor, 
and his bearing is more independent. Long train journeys in 
Russia are depressing experiences. Once past the limits of the 
towns, every village is the same — a wide street or two — not really 
streets, of course, but deep dust or mud, or snow, according to 
the season, and from a score to a couple of hundred gray, one- 
storey wooden houses, usually dilapidated, and a church. Russia 
is still first and foremost an agricultural country; she produces 
(including Poland) two thousand million bushels of grain, and 
grain products form more than half her total exports to Europe; 
therefore at the right season there are great stretches of waving 
fields, and later the huge mounds of straw, whence the grain has 
been threshed. But it is in her most fertile districts that the 
worst famines occur, for famine — a little one every year, a big one 
every seven years — has now become a regular occurrence. And 
the country, as one flies across it, leaves the general impression 
of indigence. In sharp and painful contrast with western Eu- 
rope, there are virtually no fat stack-yards, no cosey farm-house, 
no chateau of the local land-owner, no squire's hall — merely 
assemblages of men and women just on the hither side of the 
starvation line. And, from all one learns, disease is rife. Whole 
villages, I was told by men who knew them well, are poisoned 



THE TWO MOSCOWS 



43 



with syphilis, and the authorities, gravely alarmed at this terrible 
state of things, have appointed of late several commissions of in- 
quiry to devise remedial measures. Drunkenness, too, is a na- 
tional vice, the peasant having his regular bout whenever he 
has saved up a small sum, but the new government monopoly 
of the sale of vodka, which is gradually coming into force over 
the whole country, will, I believe, exert a beneficial influence 
in this matter, and much of the denunciation levelled at it is, 
in my opinion, unjust. 
The vast void spaces 
of rural Russia, by the 
way, may be imagined 
from the fact that 
every train carries a 
ladder and tools and 
electrical appliances 
for cutting the tele- 
graph wire and calling 
for assistance in case 
of accident or break- 
down. This happened 
to me on one occa- 
sion. The lines are, of 
course, nearly all sin- 
gle ones, so there is no 




Broken Down on the Steppe— Tapping the 
Telegraph for Help. 



Opportunity to stop a train going in the opposite direction. 
Last winter successive trains were blocked by snow near Odessa, 
until several thousand passengers were snowed-up,i! almost with- 
out food, for three days, suffering terribly, and only released and 
provisioned at last by the efforts of two regiments and a hastily 
organised service of sledges. Between the towns in Russia, 
even on the main lines of railway, you are in a country almost 
untouched by the conveniences of modern civilisation. 

Personally, the Russian common people are attractive. They 



44 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

are simple, good-natured, kindly, very ready to be pleased or to 
laugh. Nobody can fail to like them. Their poverty does not 
prevent them from being happy in their melancholy Slav fashion. 
They live in dirt and are inexpressibly verminous, yet they 
luxuriate regularly in the village vapour baths. Black rye bread, 
cabbage, buckwheat, mushrooms, eggs are the chief items of the 
mujilzs fare. He is a fluent liar, generally from amiable motives. 
He is religious in every fibre of his being, but his religion is wholly 
of the letter; he is convinced that his priest has the evil eye; he 
gets wildly drunk at Easter for joy to think that Christ is risen, 
and at other times for no reason at all. The soldier, typical of 
his class, is a great child, and is treated as such. Nothing is left 
to his intelligence or his initiative. Of virtues he has many — he 
is brave, obedient, faithful; of wits he is not supposed or even 
desired to show any sign. The very words he is to say are put 
into his mouth. If an ofhcer asks him a question that he cannot 
answer, he may not say, '' I do not know " ; he must reply, " I 
am not able to know." When his Colonel greets him collectively, 
he has one answer; when the Tsar greets him he has another — 
a whole sentence carefully learned by heart and shouted in unison 
by the whole regiment in a long series of explosive syllables. 
His pay is about is. lod. — 44 cents — every three months. From 
the point of view of the military martinet, he is ideal Kanonen- 
f utter — chair a canon. To his number there is no limit. 

To this general characterisation of the Russian populace I 
must add one important qualification. The extraordinary — the 
almost incredible — growth of industriaHsm in Russia is bringing 
about a great and vital change in the masses of the people. The 
peasant who works with hundreds or thousands of his fellows 
in a mill or factory soon becomes a different being from the 
peasant toiling on his bit of village land and migrating hither 
and thither, in seasons of agricultural work, for employment. 
This, to my thinking, is by far the most significant and impor- 
tant aspect of Russia of to-day, and I shall have more to say 



THE TWO MOSCOWS 



45 



about it hereafter. I only desire here to make clear the two great 
characteristics of the Russian social fabric, without an apprecia- 
tion of which no Russian question or prospect can be intelligently 
judged — autocracy, the semi-divine, unquestioned, unbounded 
authority, at the top; its counterpart, illiterate, superstitious, 
brute-like dependence and automatonism, at the bottom. 



I cannot help but turn back for a moment to Old Moscow, 
before leaving the two capitals of Russia, with their associations 
and suggestions. In a 
crowded street of banks 
and merchants' offices, 
in the " Chinese City " 
— all foreigners in Rus- 
sia used to be called 
*' Chinese," just as to- 
day they are called 
" Germans " — stands a 
little mediaeval house, 
skilfully and sympa- 
thetically restored — the 
home of Michael, the 
iirst Tsar of Romanoff 
race. And within the 
Kremlin stands the 

Cathedral of the Arch- 

, TV ;r • 1 1 .1 The Home of the Romanoffs, Moscow. 

angel Michael, the 

mausoleum of all the Ruriks and Romanoffs till Peter built 

his city on the Neva and laid him down forever in its island 

fortress-church, to be followed by all the Tsars unto this day. 

In the one place you see the little, low, many-coloured rooms 

(much like the old royal apartments in the Kremlin palace), 

the narrow bed, the modest clothes-chest, the great wooden 

kvass bowl, the green leather boots with their pointed spur- 




46 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

heels, of Michael Romanoff; the night-dress and the needles and 
the flat-irons of his wife; the cradle and the playthings of his 
children. In the other place he lies beneath a wine-red velvet pall, 
and six and forty of his race, similarly habited for eternity, are 
his silent companions. When one thinks of what these Roman- 
offs were, what they are, what they desire to be, and what are 
the colossal and ever-growing forces they control, at the mo- 
tion of a single will, to turn their all-embracing and fanatic de- 
sire into fact, I know of few more impressive spots on modern 
earth. 



COUNT TOLSTOI AT 
HOME AND ABROAD 



CHAPTER III 

LEO, THE SON OF NICHOLAS 

THE name of Moscow will always bring back to my mind, 
before anything else, my visit to Tolstoy. Indeed, he is 
as much a part of Russia, as significant of Russian character, as 
prophetic of Russian development, as the Kremlin itself. At 
the bottom of every Russian is a stratum of enthusiastic ideal- 
ism, of disbelief in the thing that is and belief in the thing that 
may be. Scratch a Muscovite and you find a transcendentalist. 
Drop into conversation with your neighbour in the railway car- 
riage and in ten minutes you will be disputing hotly over some 
purely abstract proposition, connected, nine times out of ten, 
with the possibility of a perfect social state. With us the classes 
of those who do things and those who dream them are sharply 
dissevered; the typical Russian is doer and dreamer in one, and 
Tolstoy is the dreamer incarnate in every Russian heart. 

The guide-book describes Tula as the Russian Birmingham 
and Sheffield combined. Peter the Great filled it with his gun- 
smiths, and to-day, faithful to this tradition, it is the principal 
small-arms manufactory of the Empire. Moreover, since coal 
and iron have been discovered in the neighbourhood, it has taken 
on a new development, and is now a thriving and growing city. 
It was not small-arms, however, nor iron-works, that took me 
thither, but something the precise antithesis of these symptoms 
of modernity. For ten miles out of Tula lives Count Tolstoy, 
and I could not be within six hours by train of his home with- 
out making a pilgrimage to meet the man who is perhaps less 
of this Russian world than any other individual within its con- 

47 



48 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

fines, yet whose voice is regarded by the world outside as the 
most remarkable thing which Russia contains to-day. To my 
telegram requesting permission came the cordial but untrans- 
latable words, Milosti prosim, and, leaving Moscow at night, at 
eight o'clock next morning 1 vainly endeavoured, in very broken 
Russian, to make an hotel-keeper and a droshky-driver under- 
stand who was meant by '' Graf Tolstoy." To them the great 
man is simply Leo, son of Nicholas, and remembering this patri- 
archal habit and '' Lef Nikolaievitch," I was soon rattling over 
the cobble-stones of the long wide street on the way to Yasnaya 
Polyana, Count Tolstoy's world-famous estate. 

After the misery of agricultural Russia between the frontier 
and the capital it was a reHef to pass through a landscape show- 
ing good tillage, good roads and bridges, good flocks and herds, 
good crops, and afforestation. For part of the way we drove 
through dense forests of silver birch of perhaps twenty years' 
growth, soon to follow their predecessors into stove and furnace, 
but meanwhile of fairy-like beauty, with their spotted shining 
silver trunks and delicate golden foliage. Midway, at the foot 
of a valley, beside a railway and a river, rose an example of what 
is really to-day '' New Russia " — a huge iron-works, with its un- 
ceasing din and its belching chimneys, its rows of little houses 
and its village of mud-roofed triangular dwellings. This belongs 
to a Belgian joint-stock company, and night and day, Sundays 
included, it has a thousand men at work — men who formerly 
tilled the sandy soil with careless hand and primitive implement. 
An ant-like stream of men pours across the road to the long 
barracks and the half-underground hovels where they live. They 
are not attractive men, either, and we are glad to be in the green 
country once more, with the quiet figures of browsing beasts, 
the rumble of springless carts jerking along, a peasant asleep, 
his boots dangling, on each one, the horses with bits beneath 
their chins, thoughtfully picking their way and giving elbow- 
room to passing vehicles. After about nine miles the driver turns 



LEO, THE SON OF NICHOLAS 49 

aside from the excellent main road, and for another mile the 
droshky rocks, like a ship hove-to in a sea-way, across grass 
fields, where cart-wheels have left foot-deep ruts in the recent 
rainy weather. There are signs of careful planting about us, 
and at last something which at home would be called a village 
green, and two little white-washed towers forming the end of an 
avenue of old birches. The birches are hoary as is their master's 
head, and great in stature even as himself, and their way winds 
upward, past an exquisite willow-grove by a lake, till it brings 
you in sight of a white low-spreading chateau, with iron roof 
painted green, like almost all roofs in Russia, close set round 
with trees. 

Tolstoy works in his room till one o'clock, and nothing is 
ever allowed by his devoted family to disturb him. We are there- 
fore led by a manservant to a spacious upper room, where a 
long table, with a portly samovar at one end, and a row of chairs 
down each side, shows that wide and ever-ready hospitality is 
the rule of the household. There his youngest daughter charm- 
ingly entertains us for awhile, until his eldest daughter and 
daughter-in-law come to take us for a long walk round the 
farm and through the birch-woods. 

It is not like the farms of England, still less like the West; 
it resembles more the neglected homesteads of New England. 
There are long, low wooden barns, a long stable and coach- 
house, and a fragrant apple-house, where tons of apples are be- 
ing weighed and packed for the train. Outside. the barn lie two 
wooden ploughs, primitive enough to have come from the depths 
of Asia. In the stable Miss Tolstoy unfastens the loose-box door 
of her own hack, and going outside calls to her. The mare trots 
out and follows her mistress about like a dog. Then I am shown 
what is called the " Clydesdale " stallion, and asked to explain his 
breed. In such an atmosphere even the innocent falsehood of 
politeness is impossible, and I am therefore compelled to say that 
the animal is just half the size he should be for the name he 



J 



50 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

bears. There is also a 13-hand wild white horse from the steppe, 
which is with difficulty persuaded by the incessant purring of 
the groom from showing us then and there how really wild he is. 
Count Tolstoy, notwithstanding his great age, finds perhaps his 
keenest pleasure in traversing the country at full gallop on this 
narrow steed. Then round the fields and through the woods and 
orchards we walk and talk. It is rather a dreary picture our 
hostess paints of this famous estate. The land brings in no 
revenue — no landowner in Russia, we are told, draws anything 
in the shape of rent from his estates. The peasants give service 
at sowing and harvest in return for their land, or a proportion 
of their crops where they do not give labour. But the crops are 
small, and are all consumed on the place. Moreover, it is grow- 
ing ever more difficult to get labour at all. I ask w4iy the land 
cannot be tilled with modern implements, fertilised with artificial 
manures, and the crops reaped with self-binders, and thus sold 
at a profit. I am told that it could not be done; but I cannot 
learn why. It would be contrary to Count Tolstoy's theories, 
strictly speaking, I know, but then so is apple-selling. For one 
thing, the iron-works have disorganised the district. The peas- 
ants tramp to the mill every day and work incredibly long hours 
for incredibly small pay; which, however, saved for a fortnight, 
enables them to indulge in bi-monthly orgies of vodka. And 
drink, as everywhere, breeds crime. It is no longer safe to be 
out after dark, and once Miss Tolstoy and a friend were pursued 
in their own woods by ruffians. This is the seamy side of Rus- 
sia's industrial development. Estate by estate is passing out of 
the hands of those who inherited it from a long line of ancestors, 
into the possession of the rich merchants and manufacturers of 
the city, who are careless as to produce and seek only the social 
prestige that land alone gives in old countries. Miss Tolstoy is 
pessimistic this morning, for she goes on to say that even of these, 
the third generation is always ruined and has to begin again. 
'' No Russian," she avers, " ever ' founds a family,' as you say. 



LEO, THE SON OF NICHOLAS 51 

A man makes a fortune, his son lavishes it, his grandson disperses 
it." In his youth, Tolstoy was a mad sportsman, from dawn to 
nightfall in the saddle, or with gun and hound. Then this estate 
was watched and cherished for the chase's sake; now he thinks 
of it but as an appanage of the people which he monopolises. 

"1 




The Gateway of Yasnaya Polyana. 

But here he comes, walking sturdily down the narrow woodway, 
his dog leaping joyously about him. 

Count Tolstoy's face is as familiar as that of any crowned 
ruler of to-day. Everybody knows of his simple habits, his peas- 
ant's blouse, his avoidance of meat, wine and tobacco — in a word, 
of his practical embodiment of a curiously primitive form of Chris- 
tian faith. But his appearance makes an impression no whit less 
keen because it is exactly what you have long known. He is 
seventy-two, and his broad strong face is deeply seamed, his eyes 



52 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

see visions from far beneath heavy bushy brows, his beard is snow 
white. He wears a round soft felt cap, and a black blouse with 
a strap at the waist, and his shoes are in a strange state of dilapi- 
dation for the feet of a man who, by birth a nobleman, has be- 
come from conviction a shoemaker. 

The photograph reproduced here, which he afterward per- 
mitted me to take, shows him precisely as he appeared that day 
— the prophet's brow, the patriarch's beard, the peasant's blouse. 
But the lens cannot portray the infinite sweetness of his expres- 
sion, nor the pen convey the exceeding gentleness of his words. 
For him the law and the prophets, the ten commandments and 
the categorical imperative, are all comprised in the one word — 
Love. Who has it, has everything — religion, ethics, law, politics; 
who has it not, has nothing. *' Write me as one who loved his 
fellow-men," would be also Tolstoy's request to the recording 
angel, if he were hot far too modest to wish to be written down 
at all. And his devotion to the race marks his attitude to the 
individual. He greets you with genuine pleasure, he asks your 
opinion almost with deference, he considers your answer with 
respect. Your personality is evidently a thing he regards as 
sacred. You struggle in vain to reverse the relationship, but 
without much success, for his soul dwells apart and you can- 
not get on the same plane with him — there is so little common 
ground betw^een you. To questions about matters of current 
interest, he often replies as a mathematician might reply to a 
question about the rotation of crops, and to my own common- 
place questions, prompted by every-day life and mundane afifairs, 
there come from the burning bush of his pure soul answers as 
incomprehensible as the commandments must have seemed to 
Moses. '' Are you in sympathy," I asked, '' with M. de Witte's 
policy of fostering by all means the industrial development of 
Russia, as against her agricultural development? " " I do not 
see," was the Delphic reply, " that it makes an engine work any 
better or worse if you paint it red or blue or green." It took me, 



LEO, THE SON OF NICHOLAS 



53 




Count Tolstoy at Home. 



benighted recipient of an inspired message, several days to gv 
down to the bed-rock meaning of this ethical conundrum. Whei. 
I did, I saw that, like all Tolstoy's utterances, it led straight back 
to the single primal principle which for him sums up Christ's 



54 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

teaching, and offers the one and only cure for the ills of mankind. 
But I ran him to earth, so to speak, over the Dreyfus case, at 
that moment being reheard at Rennes. And to my unspeakable 
astonishment I found him a believer in the '' secret dossier/' a 
defender of the General Staff, accepting the guilt of Dreyfus as 
an easier alternative than the conspiracy of his fellow-offfcers 
against him. ''The people are hypnotised," he said; "they 
know nothing and they all shout the same thing. After all, why 
should I concern myself with Dreyfus — are there no innocent 
men in the prison of Tula? " * 

In truth, Count Tolstoy lives in a world of his own — a world, 
however, into which many thousands of Russians, following either 
him or Sutayef, have also entered. He sees current affairs from 
afar off. " Tell me," he said, as we sat over coffee after lunch, 

* The latest illustration of Count Tolstoy's intellectual remoteness from contempo- 
rary affairs is furnished by his reply to some questions addressed to him by the Revue 
Blanche of Paris. He says : 

" My reply to your first question, as to what the Russian people thinks of the 
Franco-Russian Alliance, is this. The Russian people, the true Russian people, has 
not the smallest idea of its existence ; but, if it were known to it, I am certain that, all 
peoples being equally indifferent to it, its common sense as well as its sentiment of 
humanity would show it that this exclusive alliance with one people in preference to 
any other can have no other object than to involve it in enmities and perhaps in 
wars : and on this account it would be in the highest degree displeasing to it. 

"To the question whether the Russian people shares the enthusiasm of the French 
people I think I may reply that the Russian people not only does not share its enthu- 
siasm — if such enthusiasm really exists, which I very much doubt — but that, if it knew 
all that is said and done in France with regard to this alliance, it would actually con- 
ive a feeling of distrust and antipathy for a people which without any reason sud- 
v sets itself to profess a spontaneous and exceptional love for it. 
\s to the third question — what is the effect of this alliance on civilisation in gen- 
I think I am entitled to suppose that, having no other possible motive than war 
nace of war against other peoples, its influence cannot but be mischievous. As 
<;he effect of the alliance on the two nations which form it, it is clear that it has 
duced up to the present and can produce in the future nothing but the greatest mis- 
lef to the two peoples." 
Of course the Russian people, the masses, know nothing whatever about the Dual 
illiance, therefore the question was essentially a foolish one. But in describing it as 
a " menace of war against other peoples " Count Tolstoy diametrically mis-states both 
its motive and its effect. (See Chapter XXIV.) Such mundane matters cannot be 
criticised to any good purpose from the stand-point of spiritual intuition. 



LEO, THE SON OF NICHOLAS SS 

" of the progress of Socialism in England." And his face clouded 
over when I told him that Socialism, at least under its own name, 
plays a far smaller part in English life than it did within my own 
recollection twenty years ago. '' Then tell me," he continued, 
'' what is being done in England about the * single tax.' " And 
he was obviously deeply disappointed when I replied that noth- 
ing was being done about it at all. One trifling remark in our 
conversation interested him most. Looking at some carpenters 
at work, I happened to say that I try to do with my own hands 
all the carpentry on my farm. He at once came over to me to 
ask about it. And in the liking of one man for simple country 
life and manual labour he evidently thought he discovered a 
symptom of ;hope for the future of a nation. For thither runs 
his own ideal. 

So far as the secular authorities are concerned, Tolstoy seems 
to bear a charmed life. The story about the Tsar meeting him 
at a railway station and holding a long conversation with him, 
was a pure invention. Indeed, when an important official from 
St. Petersburg came to Tula in the course of certain investiga- 
tions, and desired to ask Tolstoy's advice, the latter refused to 
receive him. But except the suppression of some of his writings, 
the authorities leave Lef Nikolaievitch alone, though his views 
must seem to them the quintessence of subversive propagandism. 
" Three things I hate," he said to me: " autocracy, orthodoxy, 
and militarism," and these are the three pillars of the Russian ^ 
State. I asked him point-blank, " How is it that the Govern- 
ment has never arrested or banished you? " '' I cannot tell," 
he answered, and then, after a moment's pause he added, slowly, 
in a tone of much solemnity: " I wish they would. It would be 
a great joy to me." The general opinion among advanced Rus- 
sians is that the police are restrained in this instance by the world- 
wide scandal that any harsh treatment of Tolstoy would cause. 
But I am inclined to think that Tolstoy's influence, which is proba- 
bly greater out of Russia than in it, being almost confined to the 



56 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



spiritual sphere, is not found running athwart the administration 
in practical life. How should it? Here, for example, is one of 
his proposals. " My land here," he said to me, when I pressed 
him for some immediate practical reform, '* is worth to me, let 
us say, six roubles an acre a year. I would have the Govern- 
ment impose upon this land a tax of nine roubles. I could not 
pay it. Very well, let them take it away from me and give it in 
cultivation to peasant families in small quantities sufficient to 
support them. They could well pay the higher rate for it." Such 
views as this do not endanger the Russian social fabric. 




Yasnaya Polyana, Count Tolstoy's Home (Front). 



For some unexplained reason, however, and by some extraor- 
dinary error of ecclesiastical tactics, the religious authorities 
suddenly excommunicated hirri in March of this year. I was told 
by Russians that the reason was the issue of flysheets at a kopeck 
apiece, containing his bitterest denunciations of the Orthodox 
Church, and the enormous circulation these were having among 
the people. In accordance with what he had said to me 
about secular prosecution, he remarked to a recent visitor, *' The 
day of my excommunication was the happiest of my life." 
But this did not prevent him from striking back at once, in a 



LEO, THE SON OF NICHOLAS 



57 



long letter addressed to the Holy Synod. The latter's decree, 
he declared, is illegal or intentionally ambiguous; it is arbitrary, 
unjustifiable, and mendacious. Moreover, it contains a calumny 
and constitutes an incitement to wicked sentiments and acts. 
*' I have not repudiated the Church," he added, " because I had 
revolted against the Lord. I repudiated it, on the contrary, 
because I wanted to serve God with all the force of my soul." 

He admits that he denies the whole creed of Christianity 
considered as theology — the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the 
Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, etc., but he does not deny 



:^-;/ 


i 




I ^^^\\ \ ^MTf^k 


xJK 


f\ ,,, *';"Pip 


tFP 


I 


*»*» 


'Ifffim* ii" '^'—'"'''MiiMH'ilS 




m 


wmm» 



Yasnaya Polyana, Count Tolstoy's Home (Back). 



" God the spirit, a unique God of love, the principle of all things." 
He believes not in the Christian Heaven and Hell, but in the 
immortality of the soul and man's moral responsibility, and he 
writes long and eloquently of the God of love, whose will is that 
we should all live according to the law of love as the condition 
of bringing real brotherhood into a world torn by strife. " It 
may be," he says in conclusion, " that my beliefs ofifend, afiflict, 
or scandalise some persons; it may be that they disturb or dis- 
please; but it is not in my power to change these beliefs any more 
than it is possible for me to change my body. I must live and 



58 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

shall be obliged to die — and before long — yet all this interests 
only myself. I cannot believe otherwise than I do believe at the 
moment when I am preparing to return to this God from whom 
I came. I do not say that my faith has been the only incontesta- 
bly true faith for all times, but I do not see any other simpler or 
clearer, none which responds better to the requirements of my 
mind and heart. If suddenly there should be revealed another 
faith, better capable of satisfying me, I would adopt it at once, 
for truth is the only thing that is of importance to God. As for 
returning to the doctrines from which I emancipated myself at 
the price of so much suffering, I cannot do so. The bird that 
has taken its flight can never return to the shell out of which 
it came." * 

Before this, however. Countess Tolstoy had addressed to the 
Procurator of the Holy Synod a pathetic and passionate protest 
against the excommunication of her husband, which deserves 
quotation at length, if only to refute the statement so commonly 
made — in Russia, also — that she is without sympathy with his 
views. ^' I have read in the newspapers," she wrote, " the de- 
cree of the Holy Synod excommunicating my husband, Leo 
Nicholaievitch Tolstoy. This excommunication, countersigned 
by the Bishop of the Church, cannot leave me indifferent. 

'' My indignation and grief are immense. Not that my hus- 
band's spiritual death is entailed by that document. This is God's 
affair, not man's. From the religious stand-point the life of the 
soul remains an impenetrable mystery for each of us, and that 
life, thank Heaven, is dependent on no earthly power. But when 
I see this excommunication pronounced by the Church to which 
I belong and shall never cease to belong, which Christ has estab- 
lished in order that in God's name it should consecrate all the 
most solemn acts of man's life — birth, marriage, death — whose 
mission is to proclaim the law of charity, the law of pardon, the 
love of our enemies and of those who hate us, and whose prayers 

*TAe Times, May i, 1901. 



LEO, THE SON OF NICHOLAS 59 

are due to all, I am at a loss what to think. That excommunica- 
tion will excite not the adhesion but the indignation of men, and 
will earn for Leo Tolstoy increased love and sympathy. We are 
already receiving the expression of these sentiments, and from 
all parts of the world it will long continue to reach us. 

'' Deep, too, is the pain caused me by another senseless meas- 
ure recently adopted — the secret order by which the Holy Synod 
forbids priests in the event of Leo Nicholaievitch's death to bury 
him in church. Against whom is this blow directed? The dead, 
the insensible remains of the man, or his kindred, the believers 
surrounding him? If it is a threat, to whom is it addressed, against 
whom is it aimed? Is it really believed that I shall not find a 
priest to celebrate my husband's funeral service and pray for him 
in church — a good priest who in the presence of the true God of 
love disregards the commands of men, or a bad priest whom an 
offer of money would place at my disposal? But even this is not 
necessary. For me the Church is an abstraction, and I do not 
acknowledge other ministers than those who comprehend what 
it really is. Were it necessary to beUeve that the Church is 
merely the congregation of men who out of malice do not hesi- 
tate to violate Christ's highest command, the law of love, we 
should long ago have left it, all of us who are faithful to it and 
observe its laws. And the renegades are not those who go astray 
in search of truth, but those who, placed by their very pride at 
the head of the Church and unfaithful to the law of love, humil- 
ity, and mercy, act as spiritual hangmen. God will be lenient to 
those who even outside the Church have lived a life of humility, 
renunciation of the good things of this world, love, and devo- 
tion. His pardon is surer for them than for those whose mitres 
and decorations sparkle with precious stones, but who strike and 
expel from the Church those over whom they are set as pastors. 
Hypocrisy will try in vain to distort my words, for good faith will 
not err in judging people's real intentions." * 

* The Times, March 19, 1901. 



6o ALL THE RUSSIAS 

Three weeks later, Mgr. Antonius, Metropolitan of St. Peters- 
burg, replied to this letter, having waited, as he explained, until 
the first outburst of her grief had subsided. He repelled the 
accusation of cruelty made by the countess by explaining that 
the count had rather been cruel to himself in voluntarily renounc- 
ing the only '' source of eternal life," adding that it was against 
such renunciation on his part that his wife's protest should have 
been directed, and not against the action of the Holy Synod, 
whose decree merely recognised an accomplished fact. That de- 
cree, moreover, did not violate the Christian law of mercy and 
forgiveness, but, on the contrary, was an act of love toward 
the count, inviting him to repentance and reunion with the 
Church. As to the assertion of the countess that she could in 
any case obtain a Christian burial for her husband by love or 
money, his Eminence declared that any such act would be a 
criminal profanation, and he did not see why the countess should 
be so eager to force upon her husband a form of burial which he, 
apparently, would not wish to have. It was not astonishing that 
marks of sympathy continued to reach the count from all parts 
of the world. '' There is a glory of man and a glory of God. For 
all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass, 
but the word of the Lord endureth for ever." As long as the 
count lives there is hope, and the Holy Synod had only expressed 
the exact truth in stating that he had withdrawn himself from 
the Church and is no longer a member of it unless and until he 
repent. Although the clergy wear diamond-studded mitres and 
stars, they would be just as much pastors of the Church if they 
were again dressed in rags and persecuted.* 

Four months afterward Count Tolstoy fell gravely ill, and 
his life was despaired of. According to all accounts from Russia 
this prospect deeply alarmed both the ecclesiastical and the sec- 
ular authorities, for their action had provoked popular feeling 
to a degree they had wholly failed to foresee. A most embar- 

* The Times, April 8, 1901. 



LEO, THE SON OF NICHOLAS 6i 

rassing dilemma faced them. If they refused Count Tolstoy 
Christian burial, they risked an explosion of anger against the 
Church. If they granted it, they stultified their own decree. 
Happily the occasion for a decision was postponed, but the Synod 
has already gone so far as to explain that the decree of excom- 
munication was only temporary, not eternal. It seems highly 
probable that some way of avoiding so very delicate a situation 
will be found before it again threatens. 

So far as a foreigner may express an opinion, the Church in 
Russia needs no defence of this kind. It has become part of 
the very nature of the masses of the people — as I have said be- 
fore, even the State and the Church together cannot venture to 
change the Gregorian Calendar because the people will not have 
their saints' days altered. The excommunication of Tolstoy, too, 
could have no possible effect upon the educated classes, whose 
rehgious views are definite and well known. Finally, since 
so many of Tolstoy's writings are not permitted to be circu- 
lated in Russia, the effect of his views there is hardly so far- 
reaching as to call for such conspicuous and heavy-handed 
treatment. 

The truth is, I believe, that Tolstoy's influence is first, that 
of his noble personal character; and second, that of the artist. 
It is in this latter light that educated Russians esteem him. I 
have often heard people speak with profound respect of his work 
as a creative artist, and in the next breath laugh at his theories 
of reform. What are these, in a word? I tried to summarise 
them, immediately after my conversation with him, as follows: 
No more nations and frontiers and patriotism, but the world; no 
more rulers and laws and compulsion, but the individual con- 
science; no more multitudinous cities and manufactures and 
money, but simply the tiller of the soil, eating of the fruit of his 
toil, exchanging with his neighbours the work of his hands, and 
finding in the changing round of natural processes alike the nour- 
ishment of his body and the delight of his eyes; while, like some 



62 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

directing angel poised above, the law of love, revealed in Christ, 
lights each man's path, and so illumines the world. 

It is, of course, a species of nihilism, for realisation of it 
would mean the annihilation of science, of invention, of art, of 
literature, but it is the nihilism of the visionary, and should 
have no terrors for the autocrat, the priest, or the major- 
general. 

I have dwelt thus long upon my visit to Yasnaya Polyana, 
partly because Tolstoy is one of the most striking of living figures, 
and anything at first hand about him, especially now that we 
can hardly hope he will be included in this category much longer, 
is probably of interest; and partly because, in his vague and 
facile idealism, he is the typical Russian. There are, of course, 
compact groups of Russian reformers working directly for prac- 
tical ends which they keep steadily in view. Among these the 
bimetallists are not the least numerous or energetic. But the 
vast majority of reformers, so far as I could judge from my own 
experience, are dreamers. Almost every serious student, for in- 
stance, is a socialist, but a pure theorist, seeking the line of de- 
velopment along which human nature can perfect itself. No 
doubt of this perfectibility ever occurs to him. Half of them 
label themselves Marxists, and the other half — some local name I 
have forgotten. When any new solution of the social problem 
is advocated anywhere, it immediately finds disciples in Russia. 
Thus during the last American Presidential Election, a Populist 
group of students sprang up, and still exists. As Sir Donald 
Wallace has pointed out, Russians, having received their political 
education from books, naturally attribute to theoretical considera- 
tions an importance which seems exaggerated to those who have 
been educated by political experience. '' When any important 
or trivial question arises, they at once launch into the sea of 
philosophical principles." So far as the students are concerned, 
the result of this national habit is that they, the best educated 



LEO, THE SON OF NICHOLAS 6^ 

and most intelligent class of the community, exert little influence 
in the direction of change. When the next liberalising move- 
ment comes — and such a movement is being unconsciously pre- 
pared from above — not they, but an entirely different class, will 
have constrained it. 



FINLAND 



CHAPTER IV 
FINLAND: THE LAND OF WOOD AND WATER 

FINLAND is a little country, and there is not much to tell 
about it. But it is the focus of some brave ideas, and 
its short story has no soiled page. A desolate and water- 
logged land, in a hard northern climate, three-quarters of its 
surface destitute of population, possessing no natural wealth 
except its forests and no natural advantages except its water- 
falls, where the ripening crops race against the descend- 
ing frost for their harvest-goal and are often outstripped, and 
where the peasant for half the year lives like an Arctic explorer 
— how should it have any story? Yet the very hardness of the 
struggle has made the Finn one of the sturdiest specimens of 
humanity — only the sturdy could survive; industry was the con- 
dition of his existence; his loneliness has bred self-reHance, and 
his long solitudes have awakened faith. He has developed in 
this dark wintry corner of Europe a civilisation curiously his 
own — quaintly original on the one side and Transatlantically 
progressive on the other. He has a natural bent for science, 
especially in its practical application; art has been born to him 
— not much in quantity, but vigorous and independent in qual- 
ity; while literature has by nature deep roots in the hearts of 
men whose chilly, infertile home-land is the richest of all the 
world in folk-song and lyric proverb, in legend and magic spell, 
in epic saga and chanted rune. 

Yes, it is a little country, but it is big in character, big in 
the material and moral progress it has made under severe con- 
ditions, and it raises a big political question. No review of Rus- 

64 



FINLAND 65 

sia to-day could be complete that did not take Finland into ac- 
count, though even in its short story there is much that cannot, 
with discretion, be discussed just now. 

The first aspect under which the visitor to Russia hears of 
Finland is that of the playground of St. Petersburg. The fron- 
tier is but a couple of hours' distance by rail, yet this Httle journey 
takes you into a more attractive rurality than can be found in 
other directions. A Russian grand seigneur, with a vast estate and 
troops of servants, can have all the pleasures of country life and 
few of its inconveniences, even though his estate be mortgaged 
to the hilt and ready cash be a rare commodity. But for the 
ordinary man, and particularly for the foreign resident, it is dif- 
ficult to find a small country house in pleasant and healthful sur- 
roundings. Russia is very fiat and uninteresting, from a topo- 
graphical point of view, and Russian villages do not offer by 
any means that wholesome life and idyllic environment in which 
the townsman finds temporary amusement and repose. On the 
contrary, they are too often dirty and drunken, and they are 
nearly always poor. In Finland, on the other hand, pine-clad hill 
and dashing stream form the commonest natural features; the 
peasants are fairly well-to-do, they are healthy, intelligent, and 
strikingly honest; sobriety rules, because the sale of intoxicants 
is absolutely prohibited; there is capital fishing to be had; while, 
perhaps most influential reason of all, owing to the lowness of 
the Finnish tariff, both necessaries and luxuries are far cheaper 
than in Russia. So everyone who can afford it — and almost every 
foreign resident of the Capital — buys or rents a little country 
house in Finland, where his family lives during the summer — al- 
most intolerable in the flat, canal-intersected city of Peter — and 
whither he betakes himself either daily or at each week-end. 

The northeastern part of St. Petersburg is called the Viborg 
quarter, and the Finland station is just on the other side of the 
Neva. The frontier is at Terijoki, thirty-three miles away, but 
there are no frontier formalities, as a perfunctory glance is given 



66 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



at your baggage in the station before the train starts. There 
is no fear of much smuggling from a high-tariff country to a low- 
tariff one. Smuggling between the two countries, as I shall 
point out later, plays an important political part, but it is all the 
other way. Almost the only thing you may not take freely in 
your baggage into Finland is spirituous liquor. Even from the 
train you soon remark a difference between the two countries. 
Russia is a land of plains, broken by occasional great rivers. Fin- 
land is a land of " rocks and rills," covered with masses of granite,. 




A Country House in Finland. 

an astonishing proportion of its surface water, and the train runs 
for hours past two unbroken lines of pine-woods. And man's 
handiwork shows as much difference as nature's. The wooden 
houses of the peasants, as well as of the better classes, are neat 
and pretty, mostly painted red; they are always in good repair, 
the fences in order, the gates sound and closed. The whole coun- 
try, in fact, looks well cared for — the home of hard-working 
people, prospering thriftily. And one curious and characteristic 
detail strikes the traveller before he alights. In Russia official 



FINLAND 67 

notices of every kind appear in Russian only. The Russian of- 
ficially ignores the existence of foreign languages even where 
foreigners mostly congregate. If you do not know Russian there 
is but one thing to do — learn it. Finland, on the other hand, is 
cosmopolitan, for, to begin with, it is bilingual. Finnish, that 
strange, soft cousin of the Oriental Magyar tongue, is the lan- 
guage of the people; Swedish is spoken in all the towns and by 
everybody above the status of peasant. And the notices to pas- 
sengers in the railway carriages are in six languages: Finnish, 
Swedish, Russian, English, French, and German. 

Neatness, and modest self-respecting prosperity, are even 
more noticeable in the towns than in the country districts. Vi- 
borg, the first important place you reach in the journey from 
Russia to the capital, is hardly a real Finnish town, for it is the 
commercial link between Finland and Russia, and a large pro- 
portion of its merchants are Russians and Germans, and Rus- 
sian is spoken currently in commercial circles. The main line 
of railway runs through it; the branch to the north is only a few 
kilometres away; its splendid harbour is — except in winter — the 
chief maritime inlet and outlet of the country; and the great 
Saima Canal leads from the head of its bay deep into the multi- 
tudinous water-ways of the interior. Needless to say, there is a 
strong Russian garrison here, and over the strange old slab- 
sided Gothic castle, built by the Swedish Governor Knutson in 
1293, flies the little Russian '' war-flag." The approach, too, is 
guarded by several modern forts upon islands in the bay, for 
Russia is open to attack from this side and takes her precautions 
accordingly. Viborg, thus, apart from its Castle and round- 
house, is commercial, modern, Russo-German Finland; it is not 
genuine Finland, either of our time, like Helsingfors, or of all 
time, like the villages and up-country towns. 

Eight hours in the train, through almost unbroken pine- 
woods, with hardly a town of any importance the whole way, 
bring you to Helsingfors, and here you are really in Finland of 



68 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



to-day. The Finn has an enthusiastic admiration for the capital 
of his country, which could be pathetic if it had not so good a 
basis of justification. Indeed, I doubt if any of the capitals of 
the world which count their age by centuries and their inhabi- 




The City and Harbour 



tants by millions, evoke such a patriotic appreciation as this little 
place of 85,000 people which only began to exist in its present 
form within the lifetime of some now living. In certain respects 
I have never seen any city like it. It appears to have no slums, 
no rookeries, no tumble-down dwellings of the poor, no criminal 



FINLAND 



69 



quarter, no dirt. 1 did not specially search for these things, but 
I wandered about a good deal during a week's stay, and I did not 
see them. And I could not find them from the top of Observa- 
tory Hill with a field-glass. Down the centre of the city runs 




of Helsingfors. 

the wide Esplanade, all gardens and trees, with fine houses upon 
one side, and a truly metropolitan range of shops and hotels upon 
the other. In the middle, stands the bronze statue of the poet 
Runeberg, by his son, and graven on its pedestal is the national 
song he wrote. Every May the students of the University gather 



70 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

about his feet and sing his words — or at least they used to do so; 
perhaps this is forbidden now. The spirit and metrical vigour 
of Runeberg's poetry are admirably shown, by the way, in the 
following spirited translation of " The March of the Biorne- 
borgers," in the exact metre of the peculiar original, line for line 
— a poem now forbidden to be sung in Finland: — 

Sons of a race whose blood was shed, 
On Narva's field ; on Poland's sand ; at Leipzig ; Lutzen's dark hills under ; 
Not yet is Finland's manhood dead ; 
With foemen's blood a field may still be tinted red. 
All Rest, all Peace, Away ! begone ! 
The tempest loosens ; lightnings flash ; and o'er the field the cannon thunder ; 

Rank upon rank, march on ! march on ! 
The spirit of each father brave looks on as brave a son. 
No nobler aim 

Could light us to the field ; 
Our swords are flame ; 

Nor new our blood to yield ; 
Forward each man, brave and bold ! 
Lo! the glorious path of Freedom, centuries old ! 

Gleam high ! thou banner Victory-sealed ! 
In the grey bygone days, long since, all battle-worn, 
Be still our splendid colours, though tattered, onward borne ! 
Of Finland's ancient Standard there's yet a shred untorn. 

Never shall our fathers' ground 
Be reft by force from out the arms of soldiers who have never bled ; 

Never shall the word go round 
That Finns to their free Northern home were traitors found. 

The brave can only do and die 
Not backward turn at danger's threat ; nor shrink ; nor quail ; nor bow the head ! 
Be ours the warrior's fortune high 
To fall — we only plead for one last Victory ! 
Take sword in hand ! 
Rush gladly on the foe ! 

Die for our land. 
So Honour's life shall grow ! 
Untiring plunge from fray to fray. 
The present time is ours — 'tis now the harvest-day ; 
Thinned ranks as splendid witness show 



FINLAND 



71 



To Valour's daring deeds, our land that save and ward ; 
On with the grand old banner, that never battle scared, 
Around the staff still gathers its faithful Finnish guard.* 

Above the Esplanade is the hill whereon stands the observa- 
tory and the fine well-known group of '' The Shipwrecked " by 
the sculptor Stigell. From this height the splendid bay and har- 
bour spread out before you. On the town side these end in rows 
of neat warehouses and railway lines. A little way out is the pict- 
uresque Yacht Club, on an islet, and farther on is the group of 
island fortresses around Sveaborg — the " Gibraltar of the Baltic," 
with its 6,000 Russian 
troops and 900 guns. 
This was the scene 
of the treacherous sur- 
render of the Swed- 
ish Admiral Cronstedt 
to the Russians in 
1808, and of the un- 
successful attacks of 
the Allies during the 
Crimean War. 

Helsingfors has 
many imposing buildings for so small a city, the best placed be- 
ing the Lutheran church of St. Nicholas in the Senate Square, 
raised upon its little granite hill and reached by fifty wide steps. 
It may be seen behind the monument of Alexander II. in my' 
illustration on p. 73. This monument — also by the younger 
Runeberg, and erected by the Finnish people in 1894 — is a 
proof of how easy it has been for Russia to enjoy the devotion 
of the Finns, for on the anniversary of the Emperor's assassina- 
tion or fete-day it is surrounded by wreaths and memorial em- 
blems of their grateful affection. The University, another fine 
building accommodating 2,000 students, is named after Alex- 

• The Times, January 8, igoi. 



! , 


1^ 


^(^^^ 


^^^^PP^. 


4-- — ^'^^ 


^^_^^^^-^, 



The Diet House, Helsingfors. 



72 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



ander L, and his bust occupies the place of honour in the Aula. 
But to the visitor, especially just now, the most interesting build- 
ings are the Senate House, with its magnificent salle, where the 
Emperor, if he came, would open the Diet; Riddarhuset, the 
great panelled hall, its walls covered with the escutcheons of all 
the knightly members of the Diet, where the knights hold their 
session; and Stdnderhuset, the Estates' House, with its three halls 
where the representatives of the clergy, the bourgeoisie, and peas- 
ants sit during the rare meetings of the Diet. There is nothing 
remarkable in the architecture of these: they are simple, modern, 
and dignified, but to the stranger from a land of representative 

institutions they are 
fraught with the in- 
terest and pathos of 
some noble and his- 
toric landmark sinking 
slowly into the sea. 

The first impres- 
sion of '' Helsinki," 
however, is one's last; 
surprise and admira- 
tion at the enterprise 
and vigour by which 
so poor and small a people have made of their capital so civilised 
and so progressive a modern city. Forty years ago Helsingfors 
•had only 20,000 inhabitants, to-day it has more than four times 
that number, and as I have already remarked, I know of no capital 
city in the world which surpasses it in order, cleanliness, conveni- 
ence and all the externals of modern civilisation. The streets are 
perfectly kept, and little electric-cars, models of their kind, fur- 
nish rapid and comfortable transport to all parts; education in all 
branches of knowledge, for both sexes, offers every theoretical 
and material opportunity; the Post-office, to take one example 
of government, is the best arranged — not the biggest, of course 




The Bur-ghers' Chamber. 



FINLAND 



73 



— I have ever seen, our post-offices in the great provincial towns 
of England, where the whole of Helsingfors would be but a parish, 
being but barns in comparison; and on the table in my sitting- 
room at the Hotel Kamp was a telephone by which I could con- 
verse with all parts of Finland. All these things are the signs 
of good citizenship, the more to be admired as it has grown upon 




Finland's Love for Alexander II. 

The anniversary of his assassination. 

no rich soil of unlimited natural resources and vast easily acquired 
wealth, but has been cultivated, like the Spartan virtues of orig- 
inal New England, in the crevices of the rocks. 

What the Finns have accomplished, however, cannot be 
adequately appreciated without a comparison of certain extraor- 



74 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

dinary statistics of land and people. The area of Finland is 
373,000 square kilometres, of which as many as 41,000 are inland 
water. No fewer than 250 rivers flow into the Baltic. And only 
twenty-eight per cent, of the superficial area of the country pos- 
sesses a population of more than ten souls to the square kilometre. 
That is, seventy-two per cent. — say three-quarters, of Finland — 
is virtually uninhabited, while the remaining quarter has a density 
of only 23.5 inhabitants. At the same date as these statistics the 
neighbouring countries of Denmark had 60 inhabitants to the 
square kilometre, Russian Poland, 63, and the Government of 
Moscow, 67, while France had 'J2, Germany, 80, Holland, 140, 
and Belgium, 205. The extraordinary poverty and sterility of 
the land could not be more eloquently told. Yet this poor land 
and scattered folk, — with everything but wood and waterfalls de- 
nied to them by nature, and handicapped by one of the worst 
climates of lands where people live at all, — exported in 1898 no 
less than 180,000,000 francs' worth of natural and manufactured 
produce — nearly £3 worth per head of the total population! 
There need be few bounds to one's admiration and respect for the 
Finnish race. 

The aspect of Finland is shown by the foregoing figures as 
plainly as by any illustrations of Finnish landscapes. It is a land 
of pine forest, of rock, of river and lake. Nature has but these 
three colours on her palette there, and the only difference be- 
tween one landscape and another depends upon which of the 
three predominates at any particular place. The typical land- 
scape — the composite Finnish portrait, so to speak — is seen when 
all these elements are present in equal prominence, and the hu- 
man factor is superadded in the shape of a little patch of culti- 
vated land around a cluster of wooden buildings. This combina- 
tion is precisely shown in one of my illustrations, scattered spruce 
and fir trees where you stand, clinging, as these trees alone can, 
to the thin earth between the out-crops of granite hillside ; below, 
in the shelter, the cleared land, marked off by snake-fences which 



FINLAND 



IS 



recall a landscape in Virginia; a stream or two, emptying into 
a lake which is connected with another and thus again with an- 
other until a great chain is formed; beyond and around, hills clad 




The Finnish Landscape — Mountain, Lake, Forest, Field. 



thick with spruce and fir. That is Finland, where man inhabits 
it at all. Sometimes the forest predominates, as in the north 
and west, again, the whole country appears to be lake and bog, 
and the only terra iirma is the long narrow road between two 



76 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

sheets of water; elsewhere your eyes and ears perceive nothing 
but dashing, roaring stream. 

I have spoken of the " waterfalls " as one of the two natural 
resources of Finland, but this is not strictly accurate. There is not 
a real waterfall in Finland — only rapids. Imatra itself, the show 
place of the Grand Duchy, the Mecca of the tourist and the envy 
of the engineer, is a thousand yards of rocky, roaring rapids. The 
magnificent physical atlas of the country, recently published, shows 
some 700 rapids, a large proportion of which are suitable for hy- 
draulic development for industrial purposes, or the production of 
electrical energy. A large number of rapids have been thus devel- 
oped, and it is certain that such enterprise will extend greatly dur- 
ing the next few years. For not only is this the cheapest possible 
power, but it is peculiarly suited to the one industry, for which 
Finland possesses natural supplies, which will soon — by the ex- 
haustion of similar supplies elsewhere — be unrivalled. I mean 
the manufacture of wood-pulp, and cellulose (chemical wood- 
pulp) for making paper, cardboard, etc. Finland's forests are as 
yet hardly touched, and she has a vast area of them. An of^cial 
estimate assigns forty-six per cent, of the entire area to forests — 
a superficies of thirty-seven and a half million acres, or 58,500 
square miles. In 1899 it was calculated that these forests con- 
tained 22,396,289 large trees, and 30,712,501 smaller trees, 
still good enough for sawing. Much of this is unavailable for 
commercial purposes until the price of wood and pulp rises con- 
siderably, for at present prices, it is too far to the North, or too 
remote from river transport to pay for cutting and bringing down. 
But these prices are steadily rising, and must continue to rise, 
while to-day Finland has forests for sale, intersected by streams 
for floating down the logs, and powerful rapids from which tens 
of thousands of horse-power can easily be developed to grind 
them into pulp. 

Already this industry has taken on large proportions. In 
1865 there were two pulp-mills; in 1872, six more; to-day there 



FINLAND 



77 



are over thirty. In 1898, twenty-five pulp mills, employing 1,959 
men, produced 50,894 tons, of the value of a quarter of a million 
sterling — nearly a million and a quarter of dollars. Besides this, 
eight cellulose mills produced 13,296 tons, value £120,242, and 
fourteen paper mills, employing 2,828 men, produced 32,022 tons, 
value £552,750. In fact, to so preponderating an extent is this 




A Road in Finland. 



the chief Finnish industry that of the 180 millions of francs which, 
as I have said, was the total value of Finnish exports in that year, 
no less than 110,000,000 francs were represented by wood, pulp, 
and paper. In view of the ever-increasing circulation of news- 
papers, which depend wholly upon pulp for their supply of paper, 
and the facts that America is almost denuded of her pulp-wood 
forests, that Canada is using up her supplies at a great rate, that 



78 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

Russian wood is poor in quality and remote in situation, and that 
no other country has any forests of this nature at all, the ques- 
tion, where is pulp to come from ten years hence? is becoming 
a pressing one to all who have to supply the insatiable maw of 
the newspaper press. To-day in Finland, if you know where to 
go and how to set to work, you can buy at a fair price a powerful 
waterfall, and the freehold of enough forest land around it to cut 
and grow and cut again enough timber to keep the waterfall at 
work grinding night and day for ever. Finland, therefore, in my 
opinion, offers an excellent opportunity for the investment of 
foreign capital in this direction. Certain fiscal changes, too, which 
there is good ground to believe that Russia will shortly impose,* 
will place this industry in Finland upon an even more advan- 
tageous footing. 

* See Chapter V. , page 9 1 , footnote. 



iUOAM 



Fl/^LAAiD 



CHAPTER V 

THE FINNS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS 

FOUR races have struggled unconsciously for predominance 
in Finland, and the native population of to-day keeps 
something of the impress of each of them: the dark, slender, 
poetic, dreamy, singing Karelian, who first came 
to colonise it over the eastern border; the fair, 
broad-shouldered, hard-working, Tory Tavast; 
his cousin the real Finn; the impulsive, blue-eyed 
Swede from westward; and the childlike roaming 

A Finnish Lapp from the north. But, as I said at the start. 

Mourning . . ^ ,„..,. ,. -^-r 

Stamp. ^^^ ^^^^ ancestor of the Fmn is his chmate. He 

is hardy in body and hard in temperament; given 
to silence; laborious and conscientious; with many virtues and 
few graces. The fact that he makes a splendid sailor, tells much 
of his character, as it causes him to be found before the mast 
the world over — there is a special mission to Finnish sailors in 
San Francisco. He steers the tar-boats down his own perilous 
rapids, with the daring and coolness of the Indian in his canoe; 
he lives as frugally — and for the same reason — as the Highlander 
of Scotland; you cannot help but trust him, but it is often more 
than you can do to get him to talk. His agriculture is yet of 
the most primitive character: his favorite method of cultiva- 
tion, is to cut down the trees in winter, leave them to dry for a 
season, and then burn them, with the underwoods, to clear the 
land, and fertiHse it at the same time. 

Within his hard shell, however, there is a tender kernel of 
romance and playfulness and song. His immortal epic of the 

79 



8o ALL THE RUSSIAS 

past, the Kalevala, still echoes in his heart, and his old men clasp 
hands and sing its runes, or others which come unbidden to their 
lips, in thrilling strophe and antistrophe. On Whitsun-eve, his 
young men light bonfires and make merry round them, and 
Christmas brings out his candles and fir-trees and fat fare. But 
he comes out of his shell most of all in midsummer for a Streitge- 
sang, or Eisteddfod, when from far and near come singing-clubs 
and choirs, to be judged by a jury of their elders, in the court 
of a green glade, before an audience of the whole countryside. 
Then he plays quaint childlike games. 

To one wise law he doubtless largely owes his freedom from 
a vice which cold and poverty and loneliness and opportunity 
have developed to a terrible degree among his great neighbours 
to the east : the sale of alcohol, in any shape or form, is abso- 
lutely prohibited in Finland outside the towns. A Finnish coun- 
tryman can only obtain intoxicating liquor by going to a town 
and bringing it back with him, and towns are few and distant, 
and he is not a mobile unit. And when he wishes to celebrate 
some domestic festival, and like King Olaf's guests, to '' feast late 
and long," he has to get a special police permit for enough spirits 
to entertain his neighbours and drink " Skaal to the Northland, 
skaal " like his forebears, the vikings and the '' hoary skalds." 
Except for this law the savings bank of Suomi would tell a dif- 
ferent and a sorrier tale. 

The law-makers of Finland have also been strikingly wise in 
all that relates to education. It is a land of schools. Except 
upon the eastern frontier, where the people are still backward, 
everybody can read and write. The total population in 1890 was 
2,380,140, and so far as I can calculate, no fewer than 540,412 
souls were attending school. That is, out of every hundred of 
the entire population, something like twenty-three were actually 
at school. This seems an extraordinary record, taking all things 
into consideration. There are 2,608 university students, includ- 
ing women; 4,723 are at the lycees; private schools educate 




FINNISH AGRICULTURE— BURNING THE WOODS FOR A SEED-BED. 



THE FINNS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS 83 

7,785; primary schools contain 413,867; "urban popular 
schools " give instruction to 25,931 ; and '' rural popular schools " 
to 72,991 ; normal schools are preparing 1,881 teachers, the sexes 
being of about equal number; and private schools receiving a 
subvention from the State have 7,785 children. With such a 
foundation, one is no longer surprised to read the long list of 
learned societies which flourish here — literary, philological, ju- 
ridical, medical, and scientific. One of these, the Society of 
Finnish Literature, is laying the world under obligations by the 
wealth of folk-song it has discovered and preserved. So long ago 
as 1889 it had a collection of 22,000 epic, lyric, and magic songs, 
13,000 legends, 40,000 proverbs, 10,000 enigmas, 2,000 runes, 
and 20,000 incantation formulas. 

I find in my note-books a number of other figures about Fin- 
land, some of them eloquent concerning the national character 
and achievement. We hardly realise Avhat a little people it is 
until we see the fact in numerals. Twice the whole population 
would still be half a million short of filling London. Including 
the capital, there are but three towns larger than Viborg, which 
has only 24,569 inhabitants. In the whole country there are only 
thirty-seven " towns." There are but 461 Roman Catholics in 
Finland, and only 45,000 members of the Russian Orthodox 
Church, and these almost all on the eastern frontier adjoining 
Russia. Of 2,380,140 inhabitants at the census of 1890, no fewer 
than 2,334,547 were Lutherans. 

The public debt is 112,000,000 francs, and every penny of this 
has been incurred for construction of railroads, of which there are 
1,094 miles belonging to the State, and 112 miles of private 
companies. There are 174 savings banks— six to a town, and it 
must be remembered that many of these " towns " are what we 
should call villages — these banks have 124,245 depositors, who 
possess among them close upon 70,000,000 francs of savings — 
that is, the savings banks alone have on deposit popular savings 
equal to nearly two-thirds of the entire public debt. 



84 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



The people who can show facts like these in the hard con- 
ditions of their homeland must indeed be welcome citizens in 
a land where nature is lavish and men are still lacking, and it is 
astounding that any regime lucky enough to have them should 
take steps which drive them away. Some years ago there were 
80,000 Finns in the United States, and to-day numbers of them 

are emigrating to Canada, 
where it is now easier for 
them to get good land. 

This reflection naturally 
leads to the consideration of 
the one matter which the 
Finn regards as of vital im- 
portance to him — the ques- 
tion which keeps the little 
northern land in the world's 
eye. I refer to the rela- 
tions between the Grand 
Duchy and the Russian Em- 
pire. 

At present, as everybody 
knows, these are almost the 
worst possible. Twice with- 
in the last few months I have seen a capital where every 
woman was in black. One was London, where the people 
were mourning their dead Queen; the other was Helsingfors, 
where people mourned their lost liberty. Every woman in 
Helsingfors bore the black symbols of personal woe. But per- 
sonal protest went much farther than this. When General Bobri- 
kof, the Russian Governor-General, who was sent to carry out 
the new regime, took his walks abroad, every Finn who saw him 
coming, crossed to the other side of the street. When he patron- 
ised a concert for some charitable purpose, the Finns bought all 
the tickets, but not a single one of them attended. The hotels 




Arhippaini Miihkali, the Finnish Blind 
Bard. 



THE FINNS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS 85 

refused apartments to one of the Finnish senators who supported 
the Russian proposals. By the indiscretion of a porter he se- 
cured rooms at one of the principal hotels and refused to leave. 
Therefore the hotel was boycotted and it is temporarily ruined. 
The Russian authorities, intending to make the Russian lan- 
guage compulsory in all government departments, invited sev- 
eral young Finnish functionaries to St. Petersburg to learn Rus- 
sian under very advantageous conditions and with every prospect 
of official promotion. When the language ordinance was pub- 
lished and these Finns saw why they were desired to learn Rus- 
sian, they immediately resigned. The Russians took charge of 
the postal system of Finland and abolished the Finnish stamps. 
Thereupon the Finns issued a '' mourning stamp," all black ex- 
cept the red arms of Finland and the name of the country in Fin- 
nish and Swedish, and stuck it beside the Russian stamps on 
their letters. The Russians retorted by strictly forbidding its 
sale and destroying all letters which bore it. Now it is one of the 
curiosities of philately. On the last anniversary of the publica- 
tion of the Tsar's manifesto to the Finnish Senate concerning 
the modification of the administration, of Finland, in one of the 
streets a black sheet was displayed on which were inscribed the 
names of those Senators who voted in favour of the proclama- 
tion of the Imperial manifesto, and in the evening the windows 
of the houses inhabited by Finns were hung with black curtains, 
and the lights in the rooms extinguished. A deputation of ladies 
placed a mourning band on the monument of Alexander IL, while 
groups of young men made a round of the town and compelled 
Russian shopkeepers to put out their lights. They also forced 
their way into Finnish houses in order to extinguish the lamps. 
One of the bands demonstrated before a Russian bookseller's 
shop and made rough music outside the residences of some Sen- 
ators, to whom threatening letters bearing the signatures of mem- 
bers of the Secret Patriotic Association were sent.* So the 

* The Times, February 23, 1901. 



86 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



wretched struggle goes on, and the young Finn turns his eyes and 
often his steps toward the Western World. 

Nothing could be easier than to write a few pages of dithyram- 
bic denunciation, declaring one side to be wholly right and the 
other wholly wrong, and I well know that I shall be reproached 
in no measured terms for not doing so. Moreover, sweeping 
generality is much more convincing than discrimination. Yet I 




The Rune-Singers. 



find myself unable to take this course. The rights and wrongs 
of the dispute are not, so far as I can judge, thus strictly appor- 
tioned. Like most rights and wrongs, when disputes rage, they 
are shared. I am certain, too, that only harm is done by long 
and bitter discussion of the relations of Russia and Finland at 
this moment. Therefore I shall write briefly, but frankly, on 
this painful topic. 

There is no doubt whatever that, under the Finnish Consti- 



THE FINNS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS 87 

tution, the contention of the Finns is right and that of the Rus- 
sians wrong. In the Fundamental Laws, the Order on the Diet, 
paragraph 71, says: " A fundamental law can be instituted, modi- 
fied, explained, or abolished, only on the representation of the 
Emperor and Grand Duke, and with the consent of all the Or- 
ders." That is clear, and it is final, so far as any law or treaty 
can be. Therefore, when Russia insists upon modifying, abolish- 
ing, or introducing fundamental conditions of Finnish national 
life without the consent of the Finnish Diet, she is acting illegally 
and unconstitutionally. When Finland was taken from Sweden 
and annexed to Russia in 1809, the Tsar Alexander I. conferred 
upon it — and conferred willingly, and from conviction of the 
expediency of the act — a distinct autonomy, and that autonomy 
has been confirmed by the Coronation declaration of each suc- 
ceeding Tsar. Finland has done nothing to show that the con- 
cession was unwise, or to justify its withdrawal. She has been 
loyal, she has raised her due contingent of soldiers — a very small 
one, it must be allowed — and she has paid her financial contribu- 
tion. Her Constitution is now practically abrogated by the de- 
cision of the Russian Government that the Tsar has power to 
decide what laws must be subject to discussion by the Diet, 
and what may be put in force without such discussion and Fin- 
nish constitutional acceptance. In their appeal to the Tsar the 
members of the Diet point out " that a law, whether fundamental 
or general, to be valid in the country can be enacted only with 
the approval and consent of the Estates " ; that " neither the 
institutions of Russia and its autocratic system have been intro- 
duced into Finland, nor have they had any force there"; that 
the Council of State " cannot act as a legislative organ for Fin- 
land," and that the Imperial manifesto and the statutes based 
upon it are " inconsistent with the right of making their own 
laws which, according to the Constitution of Finland, belongs 
to her people." There can be no question of the historical ac- 
curacy of these contentions. 



88 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



The chief Russian actions of which the Finns complain are 
the appointment of a Russian instead of a Finnish Secretary of 
State, the taking-over of the Finnish post-oflfice, the announce- 
ment that after a certain future date Russian will be the lan- 
guage employed in all ofBcial departments, the severe censor- 
ship and suppression of newspapers, and the institution of a new 
law of military service. Of these it is the last-named which has 
brought something like despair into the Grand Duchy. 
It was stated on good authority that this proposal, when 
laid before the Russian Council of Ministers some three 




Finnish Types. 

months ago by General Kuropatkin, Minister of'^War, aad Gen- 
eral Bobrikof, Governor-General of Finland, was discussed for 
four hours and then rejected by a large majority, the Grand 
Duke Vladimir Alexandrovitch, and M. de Witte, Minister of 
Finance, both voting with the majority. If this were so, the 
Tsar, whose decision of course over-rides that of the Council, has 
been guided by his military advisers, for the new law, in a some- 
what modified form, has now been signed and of^cially promul- 
gated, and is to come into force in 1903. It is accompanied by 
an Imperial manifesto pointing out that the inhabitants of the 
Grand Duchy must share, in common with all other parts of the 



THE FINNS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS 89 

Empire, the military burdens necessary to secure the unity of 
the Russian army and the national defence. Not to go into 
needless detail, the effect of the new law, two years hence, will 
be to abolish the post of Finnish Commander-in-Chief, to abolish 
the Finnish army as a distinct military organisation, and to draft 
the Finnish recruits into Russian regiments, which will for a time 
have a specially Finnish character, be paid for by the Finnish 
exchequer, and be liable to service anywhere. The number of 
recruits will be fixed by the Minister of War, and the length of 
service will be eighteen years — three with the colours and fifteen 
in the reserve.* Some of the above provisions are obviously only 
temporary, and the Imperial intention undoubtedly is to make 
Finland contribute to the national army precisely like every other 
part of Russia. 

Now, it is easy to understand that military service in Russia 
will be intensely distasteful to the Finnish peasant. But it is 
doubtless equally distasteful to every other peasant of the Tsar's 
dominions. No peasant, in any country, enjoys forced military 
service. The Finn will suffer rather more because he will be sur- 
rounded at first with a strange language, and because his at- 
tachment to his home is greater. The blow hits him harder, 
also, because he has hitherto enjoyed an exemption unknown 
to Russian or German or Frenchman: his loss is the withdrawal 
of a privilege, rather than the infliction of an injustice. Why 
should the Finn, alone of all subjects of the Tsar, escape the per- 
sonal burden of military service? I confess that I can see no 
reason, except that under his Constitution he is thus exceptionally 
favoured. 

To be quite frank, the charge of violation of the Finnish Con- 

*The Novoye Vremya, in commenting on the new Military Service Law for the 
Grand Duchy, sagaciously points out that as the existing period of service with the 
colours for Russian conscripts is five years, and as the object of the new law is to se- 
cure unity of service in the Russian army, this particular enactment probably points to 
a reduction from five to three years in the period of active service throughout the whole 
Russian army. — Morning Post, August 2, 1901. 



90 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



stitution is met by one simple consideration. As a matter of 
plain fact, there is in human affairs of this kind no such thing 
as finality. Or rather, the only final thing is force majeure — 
imperative national self-interest. Before that all promises are 
air, and all treaties are black marks on white paper. I put this 
brutally (foreseeing the consequences), but there is no use in 
mincing words. Every student of history, politics, or diplomacy 
knows it to be the simple truth, and every country, not Russia 
alone, affords examples in proof. Germany broke her promises to 




Salmon Traps in Finland. 



Denmark. France broke her promises about Madagascar. To 
come nearer home, England has repeatedly pledged herself to 
evacuate Egypt, and the United States was solemnly pledged to 
grant complete independence to Cuba. None of these pledges 
seems Hkely to be kept. Therefore, if it is, in the judgment of 
Russia, an imperative condition of her national prosperity or 
security that her relations with Finland should be fundamentally 
altered, she will only be following the ordinary line of historical 
and modern precedents by breaking her promises and tearing 



THE FINNS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS 91 

up her pledges. I do not defend the principle — I state the fact. 
" Pity 'tis, 'tis true." 

And who is to be the judge of Russian national prosperity 
and security? Obviously, Russia herself — not the well-meaning 
foreigners who from the safe comfort of their libraries hurl their 
books of reference at her head. It is not they who will stop the 
smuggling across her frontier from Finland, to the injury of her 
heavily taxed manufacturers and merchants, nor they who, in her 
hour of need, will increase her army or defend her western fron- 
tier. Russia, like Italy, fara da se, and like every other sovereign 
Power that has ever grown up and endured, will and must take 
all the steps that seem to be necessary to that end. 

Having said so much, I bow before the storm; but one or 
two considerations should be borne in mind by those who will 
passionately differ with me. I shall not be accused of having 
failed to give due credit to the Finnish national character for the 
wonderful progress she has achieved, but let it be remembered 
that Finland has thriven under the protection of the Russian 
sword. She has borne virtually no burden of national defence. 
If she had been independent, and obliged to be ready to mobiHse 
an army or a fleet at any time for her own protection, her budget 
would have presented a different aspect. Moreover, the high 
tariff country has protected the low tariff country. The Finn 
has thriven under a very low scale of customs duties, while his 
Russian neighbour and competitor has had to meet the demands 
of a high one.* Living is cheap in Finland: that is one of the 

* The Russian Government decided long ago to assimilate the Finnish tariff to that 
of Russia. Germany, which exports to Finland about ;^2,ooo,ooo worth of goods an- 
nually, naturally viewed the proposed change with alarm, but although this question 
of the Finnish tariff was not mentioned in the commercial treaty between the two gov- 
ernments, the following arrangement was concluded by an exchange of notes. Russia 
undertook to permit Finland to maintain its tariff unaltered until December 31, 1898, 
after which date the difference between the Finnish and Russian tariffs might be re- 
duced by 50 per cent., after December 31, 1901, by 75 per cent., and the two tariffs 
may be made identical after December 31, 1903. Up to the present time, however, no 
change has been made. 



92 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



reasons why so many Russians spend half the summer and half 
their incomes there. Cigars cost a quarter of what they cost in 
Russia: every daily summer resident takes back a pocketful every 
morning. All Finnish produce enters the great Russian market 
under a differential duty — that is, practically, with a bounty. 
Russian manufacturers cannot compete in Finland with the prod- 
uce of England or Germany. Finally, as things are now, Rus- 
sia really believes herself vulnerable to a foreign foe coming via 



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A Finnish Wedding: The Bride's Prayer on Leaving Home. 



Finland. In her view, national security means military and other 
unification. I have no competence to say whether this view is 
right or wrong. I only say that Russia holds it, and that settles 
the question. 

There has been bad procedure on both sides, and, as in the 
case of the hen and the egg, it is hard to say which came first. 
Russian administrators in Finland have committed blunder after 
blunder of tact, have given offence where none need have been 



THE FINNS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS 



92 



given, have needlessly wounded the national sentiments of a proud 
and stubborn people. The Finns have shown themselves so in- 
transigent, so careless of Russian feeHngs and needs, so hostile, 
in fact, as to put weapons in the hands of those who declare them 
to be really enemies of Russia. I repeat, therefore, that no true 
friend to Finland will seek, under these circumstances, to embitter 
her relations with Russia. 

If this remark be justified, it applies especially to those among 




A Finnish Wedding:: Veiling- the Dowered Bride. 

US who are always, assuredly wath the best motives, ready to 
sign memorials and hold meetings and found societies to protest 
against the management by other nations of their own affairs, 
or to summon our own government to redress wrongs for which 
it is not responsible. The share of responsibility for the Crimean 
War which the Society of Friends undoubtedly incurred by its 
misleading deputation to Nicholas L, should be a warning. The 
meetings held and the letters written to the late Tsar concerning 



94 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

the treatment of Jews in Russia come under the same category. 
In this case it might have been thought that the spectacle of 
the great Hebrew financial houses floating gigantic Russian loans 
would have been sufficient to deter Christians from stepping in 
where the co-religionists of the oppressed, indispensably power- 
ful in their own sphere, would not tread. To have plunged into 
war to avert or avenge the sufferings of Armenia, with all Eu- 
rope ranged against such a course, would have been an act 
fraught with extreme national peril, from which we were happily 
preserved, though there were many who urged it upon us. And 
the continual and often ignorant "^ denunciations of Russia for 
her action in Finland is, in my opinion, equally futile and unwise. 
The desirability of minding one's own business is as great in inter- 
national relations as in private life, even though good people 
often lose sight of it. And let us not forget that Russians dis- 
like and resent abuse and denunciation precisely as much as we 
do ourselves, and are just as apt as we are to stiffen their backs 
in consequence of it. 

In conclusion, there is one more consideration which those 
who raise the loudest cries of illegality would do well to ponder. 
Russia, as one of her leading statesmen remarked to me, might, 
with perfect ease and safety and in all the odour of perfect legal- 
ity, absorb the whole of Finland next month, and wipe it off the 
map as a separate entity. This would be the simple process. 
First, she announces that she withdraws from all protection over 
Finland and grants to the former Grand Duchy absolute and 
complete national independence. Then, as the presence of an in- 
dependent and possibly hostile State upon her exposed frontier 
would be obviously incompatible with her national security, she 
marches an army corps into Finland and annexes the country — 
lock, stock, and barrel. White to play — mate in two moves. 
There would be a huge outcry, but anybody who knows any- 

♦ I read in a recent issue of a leading London daily paper the statement that Russia 
had suppressed the use of the Finnish language throughout Finland ! 



THE FINNS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS 



95 



thing of contemporary Europe knows that not a finger would 
be raised to stop her. And I do not see an American fleet steam- 
ing up the Baltic. Thus Russia could get all she wants, and 
infinitely more than she is asking, without transgressing for an 
instant or by a hair's breadth that sacred formal legality in which 
laws and lawyers often perpetrate injustice everywhere. 




A Finnish Pearl Fisher. 



SIBERIA 



CHAPTER VI 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SIBERIA 

ANY account of Siberia should begin with the words, '' Once 
upon a time," for it must sound like a fairy-tale. The 
little beginnings, when the first Tsars of Moscow authorised the 
first expedition across the Urals; the private family that financed 
it; the Volga boatman, become pirate, his life forfeited for his 
crimes, who led it; the vast distances, the awful climate, the 
strange peoples, the unsurpassed heroism of these pioneers; later 
on, the magnificent diplomacy, the fine strategy, the perfect in- 
sight which outwitted Tatar, Tungus, Manchu, and Jesuit alike; 
the military tenacity which stuck to what diplomacy won, even 
when England and France allied tried to take it away; after 
the conquest, the development; first furs, then gold, then wheat, 
then coal, and now at last the greatest railway in the world and 
possibly the eventual mastery of the Far East behind the snort 
of the locomotive — there is not in history, so far as I know, a 
chapter which, being fact, breathes such an air of fairy-land. 

So, once upon a time, there dwelt upon the banks of the 
Volga a man named Vassili, the son of Timothy, the son of Atha- 
nasius Alenin the carter, earning his hard bread by towing boats 
up the great river. He was nicknamed " the millstone," because 
he ground the corn for his comrades — Yermak. A man of iron 
physique and primitive passions, the lonely boats were at his 
mercy, so he became a pirate and murdered their owners and 

plundered their cargoes. At last the terrible tales reached the 

96 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SIBERIA 97 

ear of Ivan the Terrible, who decreed his death and sent a force 
to hang him and his band of Don Cossacks. Up the highway 
of the Volga they fled, till on the banks of the Kama, not far from 
the foothills of the Ural Mountains, they came to the abode of 
a rich family of settlers and traders named Stroganof, who at 
that very moment were casting envious eyes across the range 
to the land of Yugra, w^hence the Ostiaks brought such precious 
sables. In Yermak the Stroganofs saw the man they needed. 
They furnished him with money and arms, he gathered a motley 
crew of adventurers round him, and on New Year's Day, 1581, 
he started. That was the beginning; the railway to Port Arthur 
is not the end. 

Yermak was a fox in cunning and a lion in fighting. His 
perils were endless and his sufferings terrible. One by one his 
old Cossack comrades of the Volga were slain by his side, and 
at last he was literally caught napping by his chief enemy, the 
blind Tatar chief, Kuchum, in a camp on the banks of the Irtysh 
River, and after cutting his way to the water was drowned while 
trying, like the old boatman he was, to swim to safety. But be- 
fore this he had carried the two-headed eagle of Byzantium, 
which Ivan the Terrible had just adopted for the blazon of Mos- 
covy, almost as far as the site of Tobolsk; he had bartered the key 
of a new empire for the Tsar's pardon; he was a prince and wore 
a mantle sent him by the Imperial hands; he had set Russia's 
goal immutably in the East. Moreover, although Kuchum killed 
him in the end, he had seized the old man's capital two years 
before, and made it a centre of Asiatic trade for Russia. This 
capital was called Sibir, and it has given its name to five million 
squares miles of Russia in Asia. iHenceforth, therefore, let us 
pronounce the first syllable of Siberia short. 

After Yermak's death the absorption of Siberia proceeded as 
steadily as water trickling down hill. The loadstone was ever the 
sable, and as fast as one district was stripped of its furs, rumours 
of the wealth of the next drew the pioneers on. Sometimes furs 



98 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

were scarce, at other times the Cossacks lined their coats with 
sable. The little bands of explorers built themselves zimovie, 
winter quarters of wood, and gradually the soldiery followed and 
erected their ostrogs, wooden blockhouse forts, near by. Terrible 
suffering was, of course, common; starvation and frost-bite took 
their yearly toll; more than once it is recorded that men ate men 
in their extremity; one expedition had to abandon twenty-four 
soldiers with frozen feet upon an ice-bound river, which engulfed 
their corpses in the spring. But ever the movement spread — 
now by individual enterprise, now by Government aid, now in 
spite of Government opposition. Heroism against nature and 
natives alike became endemic. Russia pushed steadily on. To- 
bolsk, near Kuchum's deserted capital, was founded in 1587; the 
next great river, the Yenissei, was reached, and Yenisseisk 
founded in 1620; the Lena discovered and Yakutsk built in 1632. 
Irkutsk, on the Angara, close to its outlet into Lake Baikal, dates 
from 1 65 1, and before this to the north, Dejnef had sailed 
through Bering's Strait in 1648, Cossacks had made their appear- 
ance on the Sea of Okhotsk in 1636, Poyarkof had found the 
Amur in 1644, and in 1650 Khabarof had captured the town of 
Albazin, to the north of the Amur, and founded at the junction 
of the Ussuri and the Amur the town now called Khabarofsk, 
he being the first Russian to come into contact — which meant 
conflict — with the Chinese. Thus in seventy years after Yermak 
had started to cross the Urals for the unknown, fur-bearing land 
of *' Yugra," Russia had extended right across Asia, northward 
as far as the inaccessible Arctic regions, southward to the borders 
of China, and eastward to the bank of the mighty river which falls 
into the Pacific. In the north the expansion continued, for in 
1697 Atlasof conquered Kamchatka; but a sudden check came 
to the eastward and southern advance by the pusillanimous treaty 
of Nertchinsk in 1689 — the one occasion on which Russia has 
been a victim to that venerable bogey, the military power of the 
Chinese. This was, by the way, the first convention between 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SIBERIA 99 

Chinese and any western nation, and by it Russia lost the Amur 
and her access to any useful part of the Pacific seaboard. 

For nearly one hundred and fifty years the tide was stayed in 
the Far East, while Russia's energies were sapped and her vigour 
rudely tried by events at home. The race of Rurik had become ex- 
tinct; the false Demetrius had desolated the country; the family 
of RomanofT had finally established itself on the throne of Mos- 
cow at the moment of Russia's direst need; Moscow itself had 
been burned and occupied by the PoHsh enemy; the land had been 
a prey to insurrections. The Romanofifs saved Russia, but it was 
long before they had any strength to spare for her far frontiers, 
and even the colossal energy of Peter the Great, though he was 
sensitive enough to the pull of the eastern loadstone, was almost 
monopolised by the task of lifting Russia into line with her west- 
ern neighbours. Nine Russian rulers came and went — four of 
them were women, one was a child, and the reigns of all but two 
were very short — before Russia resumed her eastward march. 
But when Alexander I. had finished his successive wars with 
France, Austria, Sweden, and Turkey, when Nicholas I. was not 
yet plunged into the war in the Crimea, the moment arrived, and 
with it the man. The sudden elevation in 1847 of the young Gen- 
eral Muravief, Governor of Tula, to the post of Governor-General 
of Eastern Siberia — an act of administrative genius on the 
part of Nicholas I. — closed the period of Siberian eclipse which 
had begun a hundred and forty-eight years before with the Treaty 
of Nertchinsk, and opened the brilliant chapter which leaves Rus- 
sia to-day with a naval base, an army, and a railway at the gates 
of Peking. As Yermak was the hero of the first chapter, so 
Muravief is the hero of the second — he left Siberia in 1861 — 
and his statue at Khabarofsk looks down with proudly folded arms 
upon as splendid a piece of creative statesmanship as modern his- 
tory records. He saw the end from the beginning, and in spite 
of the frequent doubts and hesitancies of his sovereigns, the mach- 
inations of his many and bitter enemies, and the vast natural 



L.ofC. 



loo ALL THE RUSSIAS 

difficulties of his task, he realised it to the full, for after his retire- 
ment his work proceeded almost mechanically to its conclusion. 
He founded Petropavlofsk, on the Pacific coast, in 1849, fortified 
it, and enabled it to beat ofif triumphantly the English and French 
fleets in 1854 — the only Russian success of the Crimean War. He 
established Nikolaiefsk, at the mouth of the Amur, in 1850, and 
in 1858 concluded with China the Convention of Aigun, which 
gave Russia eastward all the territory from the Ussuri River to 
the sea, and carried her southern boundary where for the present 
it remains — at the Korean frontier. In i860 he selected her 
great naval base of Vladivostok, its name meaning " the dominion 
of the East." The rest was automatic. On March 17, 1891, an 
Imperial rescript ordered the construction of the Great Siberian 
Railway; on March 2y, 1898, Russia obtained — nominally as 
" lease and usufruct," but really for ever and a day — the railway 
terminus and impregnable naval fortress of Port Arthur, com- 
manding by land and sea the only practicable approach to the 
capital of the Chinese Empire. The fairy-tale is told. 



I have not taken this rapid glance at Siberian history because 
the history of Siberia possesses intrinsically greater interest or 
importance than the history of any other part of the Russian 
Empire. It is to illustrate and emphasise a vital principle of 
Russian life as essential to a correct comprehension of her past 
and an intelligent anticipation of her future, as the principle of 
autocracy or the character of her people. This is, that as Rus- 
sia was Oriental in her origin, so she moves to the Orient by 
innate and congenital compulsion. Only while Peter the Great 
indulged his dream of rivalling the West, and while Russia was 
distracted and exhausted by internal disorder and external ene- 
mies, was this natural process stayed. It has been, it is, and it 
always will be, her normal development: in the eyes of her strong- 
est men it is her divine mission. A seaman would describe her 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SIBERIA loi 

course as '' east half south." In her blood is the irresistible mys- 
terious Drang nach Osten; like Man himself she — 

Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, 
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal. 

It has been pointed out that the sea alone stopped the Cos- 
sacks in the seventeenth century, and when they got to work 
again in the nineteenth, the Russians crossed the Pacific, and 
pushed on to within a few miles of San Francisco, long before 
the first '' prairie schooner " sailed over the plains. The map of 
Asia is a Russian step-ladder : the Urals, Western Siberia, East- 
ern Siberia, Baikalia, Kamchatka, the Amur, Manchuria; the 
Steppe; Khiva, Turkestan, the Merv Oasis, Bokhara, Samar- 
kand; these are the rungs she has climbed. Persia, Kashgar, Af- 
ghanistan, India itself — unless a mightier force than herself bar 
the way, her feet will be here too in the fulness of time. The 
" half south " in her course is shown by the gradual descent of 
her naval base in the Far East : Petropavlofsk, Nikolaiefsk, Vladi- 
vostok, Port Arthur. If you would understand Russia, and in- 
terpret and forecast aright the march of great events, never forget 
that, for her, eastward the course of empire takes its way; that 
as the sap rises, as the sparks fly upward, as the tides follow the 
moon, so Russia goes to the sunrise and the warm water. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 

AT present there is no direct connection between St. Peters- 
burg and the Siberian Railway, but a direct line is under 
construction. Moscow is the western terminus, and a train leaves 
for Irkutsk every afternoon. This is the ordinary slow train, 
consisting chiefly of third-class carriages, with one second-class 
and half a lirst-class, and a mail van. It makes a direct connec- 
tion with Irkutsk, but passengers have to change more than once. 
Through travellers, and almost all who go far into Siberia, ex- 
cept the poor and the colonists — who have fourth-class trains to 
themselves — take the train de luxe which leaves Moscow every 
Saturday at a quarter to nine p. m. This service is performed 
by four trains, known as Nos. i, 2, and 3, which are purely Rus- 
sian, and the train of the International Sleeping Car Company. 

The Siberian Express is still a novelty in Russia, and people 
come to the station to inspect its luxurious appointments and 
witness its departure. The Siberian station is the finest in Mos- 
cow, with an imposing white fagade — " God Save the Tsar " in 
permanent gas illumination over the entrance — spacious halls, 
an admirable restaurant, and a series of parallel platforms, which 
make one think sadly of certain great London termini. At the 
farthest of these stand five unusually large and heavy corridor 
carriages and a powerful engine. As always in Russia, a crowd 
of uniformed of^cials is on hand; a brilliant light pours through 
the little windows high up in the flat sides of the carriages; the 
locomotive is only purring softly, but somewhere in the train an 

engine is at work at high speed, for there is a cloud of escaping 

102 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 103 

steam, a stream of wood sparks, and a shrill buzz; and a chatter- 
ing, laughing, crying crowd is at each entrance taking long leave 
of those going far away. Three strokes of the bell, big men 
with swords kiss each other fervently, a whistle, a snort of the 
engine, an answering whistle, and the train is olT into the night 
on its unbroken journey of 3,371 miles, to the far confines of that 
land whose name was recently only a synonym of horror. 

The Russians are very proud of their Siberian train. They 
told me at every chance that I could never have seen such a train 




A Siberian Locomotive. 

— that there is nothing so luxurious and so complete in the world. 
This is a mistake of tact — it rather causes one to look for short- 
comings, and little failings look larger in the light of these boasts. 
Moreover the Siberian Express needs no puf¥; from almost every 
point of view it is a marvellous achievement, though the train 
itself is not so wonderful as Russians think. It differs enough, 
however, from all other trains de luxe to be worth a detailed de- 
scription. The first engine I noticed was built in France, all the 
rest were Russian, and some of these, with four large driving- 
wheels coupled together, were extremely powerful. These were 
freight engines; in fact, after the line enters Siberia all its engines 
are freight engines; the train is a very heavy one, the speed is low, 
and passenger engines will not come until the line is complete 
and a great effort is made to shorten the entire journey. Be- 



I04 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

hind the locomotive comes a composite car, the forward part 
being the locked luggage compartment, and the after-section 
being the kitchen. Between the two is the electric-Hght plant, 
for the entire train, even to the red tail-lamps, is lighted by 
electricity. This plant is an illustration of the enterprise Rus- 
sian engineers are showing in every direction. Steam is supplied 
by an ordinary upright boiler, but the dynamo is run by a tiny 
Laval steam turbine — the same Norwegian firm that makes the 
familiar milk separators — revolving at an enormous speed. This 
turbine makes the shrill note that is audible whenever the train 
stops after dark. The electric plant was not out of order for a 
moment during my double journey, and the trains were lighted 
magnificently. 

The second carriage contains the sleeping quarters of the 
cooks and waiters, the pantry and the restaurant. This is a car 
which formerly served as a royal saloon, and it is in no way suited 
for a dining-car. It contains two leather sofas, a piano, three 
tables seating four persons, and certain absurd tables about eigh- 
teen inches square. In the front part of this car there is also a 
full-sized bath, with shower, and an exercising machine, some- 
thing Hke the crank in our prisons, which you make more or less 
laborious by adjusting a weight. The third and fifth cars are 
second-class, and the fourth first-class. 

Except in two points, there is virtually no difference between 
the two classes, although of course, as elsewhere, or, rather, much 
more than elsewhere, you are less likely to find objectionable 
companions in the one than in the other. There is a through 
corridor at the side, and six compartments for four persons and 
one for two persons in the second-class, and three larger com- 
partments and one small one in the first-class. One of the ad- 
vantages which the first has over the second is that in the former 
the centre of the car is an open salon, with sofa, easy chairs, writ- 
ing-table, clock, and a large map of the Russian Empire. This, 
when it does not happen to be monopolised by a party playing 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 105 

cards, is certainly delightful, and I have seen nothing Hke it else- 
where, except in the private car of an American railway magnate. 
Both first and second-class have one improvement over similar 
trains elsewhere, which cannot be too highly commended. All 




A Party of Russian Engineers in the Primeval Forest. 

the upholstery is of soft leather, and all the walls are covered 
with a species of waterproof cloth, which is washed at the end of 
each journey. The difference between this and the cloth and 
plush upholstery of other trains, which soil you at every touch, 
and fling clouds of pestilent dust into the air, is indescribable. 



io6 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

The Siberian Express, however, shows more improvement 
than this. In the roof of each compartment are two electric 
lights, one of which is extinguished when you pull the curtain 
over it at night. There is also a table lamp hanging on the wall, 
which can be placed anywhere, and an excellent movable table. 
With these two you can read and write in perfect comfort. Above 
your head are two levers: one admits fresh air, through wire 
gauze to keep out dust; the other turns hot water into the heat- 
ing apparatus. There is a pneumatic bell to the restaurant and 
an electric bell for the servant. The beds are wide and very com- 
fortable, and the whole of your luggage goes in the racks over- 
head. In the corridors are more ingenious filter-ventilators, and 
outside the windows are plate-glass flanges, so that you can look 
ahead without the danger of a spark entering your eye. Over- 
head, in the little central salon and in the dining-car, is an elab- 
orate ventilator to be filled with ice from outside in summer, so 
as to admit cooled air. The corridor also contains a frame to 
hold a large printed card showing the name of the next station, 
the time of arrival, and the length of the stop. Finally, there is 
the other advantage which the first-class passenger enjoys. There 
are no brakes on his carriage! There is no hand brake, as on 
every other part of the train, and the Westinghouse passes under- 
neath him in its pipe. He is thus undisturbed by the grinding and 
jolting which even the best-regulated brake produces, and can 
read and sleep peacefully through stoppages and down grades 
and hostile signals. This is surely the height of railway con- 
sideration. Such luxury, however, it is perhaps needless to add, 
speaks volumes concerning the speed of the Siberian Express. 

This train is the result of study by Russian engineers of the 
railways of Europe and America. It may therefore be regarded 
as the fixed type of the Siberian carriage, and I have described 
it in detail, because before we are many years older the Siberian 
railway will be one of the great passenger routes of the world. 

After much praise I may venture upon a little criticism. Rus- 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 109 

sia has in this train gone somewhat ahead of herself, so to speak. 
It is not enough to build a fine train — you must educate in knowl- 
edge, and more especially in responsibility, the people who are 
to work it. The dining-car, for example, will not bear a mo- 
ment's comparison with that of the Orient Express or the Rivie- 
ra Express. We waited interminable times for our meals. One 
passenger sat at table fifty minutes, having had nothing but a 
plate of soup and being unable in all that time to obtain a bottle 
of beer. Then he left the car in disgust, and in a loud voice de- 
manded the complaint book. Result: he was snowed under with 
apologies and waited upon like a prince. If the dining car were 
properly arranged, it would hold all the passengers. As it is, 
one has to intrigue and struggle for a table. Again, not once 
after we left was one of the station and time cards put in the 
frame. All the pneumatic bells, too, were out of order, and no 
waiter could be summoned. When I ordered a bath I was told 
that the pipes were inexplicably stopped up. There are other 
matters I might mention, and it is only fair to add that some of 
the shortcomings are the fault of the passengers themselves, who 
are not yet educated to the use of the facilities so lavishly pro- 
vided for them. A needless inconvenience is that all the lavatory 
arrangements of the train are shared by the two sexes, with con- 
sequent delays and embarrassments. The greatest disturbance, 
however, to the foreign visitor's comfort is that all Western meal- 
times must be abandoned before a Russian's daily food-scheme. 
No Russian has an exact sense of time, the lack of it being proba- 
bly attributable to the Orientalism in his blood. Nobody, indeed, 
could have one on this train, for the clock keeps the hour of St. 
Petersburg for a thousand miles or more of due eastward travel- 
ling, in order that its time-table may have some semblance of 
utility and conformity; then as the days pass the train itself grows 
ashamed of such a childish pretension, and after Chelyabinsk it 
leaps lightly to local time and hurls a couple of useless hours out 
of the window, so to speak — hours that make no record, either 



no ALL THE RUSSIAS 

of weal or woe, against any of us — two sinless hours, two joyiess, 
tearless little hours flung forth upon the brown Siberian steppes. 
As for a Russian's meal-times, he simply has none. If I had my 
tea early there would be the invariable nameless oi^cial in his 
dark-blue uniform piped with green or blue or magenta cloth, 
with crossed pick-axes or hammers or bill-hooks on his collar and 
cap, finishing a hdchis made into the shape of a cutlet — futile 
masquerade! — or thoughtfully spitting out the bones of a fried 
carp upon his plate while he selected a fresh mouthful with his 
knife. When we dined or supped they would be drinking tea, and 
once when we went into the restaurant-car for a sandwich about 
midnight a party of rugged-looking men — not of^cials, for once, 
but of occupations which their strange faces did not allow us 
to presume — were sitting round an empty cafetiere drinking 
champagne from tumblers, a saucer in front of them piled high 
with the cardboard mouth-pieces and ashes of many dozen cigar- 
ettes. This habit of eating when you are hungry and eating what- 
ever you may happen to fancy, instead of eating when the cook 
wills, and then only what custom severely restricts you to, is dis- 
organising in its effects upon the refectory of the train. There 
is no time to sweep up and set tables; no time when the servants 
can feel free to rest, sleep, or eat; no time when the wearied 
kitchen fire can '' go down " as it does at home. The result is 
great discomfort for Western passengers, and the authorities 
should certainly insist upon all meals being served at fixed hours, 
and at those hours only. 

The story of the inception of the Great Siberian Railway has 
been told many times (in my own " Peoples and Politics of the 
Far East," for instance), and all that need be recalled here is 
that the first suggestion of it came from an Englishman, and that 
enterprising Americans were the first to lay before the Russian 
Government a definite offer to build it on certain terms. Nat- 
urally enough, Russia decided that it must be her own task, but 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 113 

it was a long time before she could face the tremendous expendi- 
ture involved, and not until her statesmen's keen foresight per- 
ceived the vast change coming over the Far East was the gigantic 
enterprise reduced to a definite project. The present Tsar, when 
as Tsesarievich he was travelling in the Far East, wheeled the 
first barrow and laid the first stone of the railway at Vladivostok 
on May 19, 1891, and his enthusiastic support has assured the 
success achieved. The speed with which construction has fol- 
lowed is, considering the great natural difficulties, without par- 
allel in railway-building. The whole line was divided into seven 
sections, and work carried on upon them so far as possible simul- 
taneously. The Siberian plain presented no engineering diffi- 
culties, since for a thousand miles the surface does not show a 
higher rise than four hundred feet; but as all wood, water, food, 
and labour had to be supplied from the base, the difficulties of or- 
ganisation were very great. But the first portion, from Chelya- 
binsk to Omsk, 492 miles, was opened for traffic in December, 
1895; the second, from Omsk to Ob, 388 miles, in 1896; the 
third, from Ob to Krasnoyarsk, 476 miles, later in the same year; 
the fourth, from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk, 672 miles, in August, 
1898. Thus the rail-head reached a point 3,37 li miles east of 
Moscow, and as the train had also reached Khabarofsk, on the 
Amur, from Vladivostok, the eastern terminus, a distance of 475 
miles, in the same month and year, a total of 2,503 miles of rail- 
way had been laid and opened for traffic in seven years. The 
Siberian Railway will cross altogether thirty miles of bridges, and 
of these the line to Irkutsk required a large number, including 
such important ones as those over the Irtysh at Omsk, 700 yards, 
over the Ob at Krivoshekovo, 840 yards; over the Yenissei at 
Krasnoyarsk, 930 yards, and over the Uda at Nijni Udinsk, 350 
yards. Moreover, before reaching Irkutsk there is some very 
stii^ grading work in a mountainous country. By this perform- 
ance Russia holds the world's record for railway-building. She 
may well be proud of it. 



114 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



The train leaving Moscow at 8.15 on Saturday evenings 
reaches Irkutsk — at least it did when I travelled by it, but the 
journey is being expedited so often that the time-table is seldom 
accurate for more than a month or two — at 7.15 in the morn- 
ing of the Monday week — the ninth day. The average speed of 
the Siberian Express, which, it must be remembered, is much 




The Railway in the Urals. 

greater than that of the ordinary train from Moscow daily for 
Irkutsk, is, therefore — allowing for the difference of time between 
West and East — almost exactly seventeen miles an hour, includ- 
ing stoppages. A few minutes' study of a condensed time-table 
will give the reader more information than much description. 
Here, then, is the journey at a glance: 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 115 



Moscow-Kursk Line. 



HOUR OF 
ARRIVAL. 



DAY. 



Moscow 8.15 P.M. 

93 Serpukhof 10.54 p-m. 

i8ii Tula 1.33 A.M. 



i Saturday 



Suzrano- Vyasemskaya Line. 

Uzlovaya 4.03 a.m. [ Sunday 

382^ Riask 8.32 A.M. 

753 Penza 7.47 p-m. 



2395 



Great Siberian Railway. 

Samara- Zlataoust Section. 

1 1 18 Samara 7.09 a.m. ^ 

1155^ Kind 8.59 a.m. \ Monday 



.ivi. r 
.M, J 



1609 Ufa 10.25 p 

1 792^ Vyasovaya 4.48 a.m. ^ 

i9o8J Zlataoust 8.49 a.m. 

West Siberian Section, \ Tuesday 

2059 Chelyabinsk 2.05 p.m. 

2299J Kurgan iO'55 p-m. , 

2548! Petropavlovsk 8.00 a.m. j ^^^^^^^ 

2805 Omsk 4.57 P.M. J 



Central Siberian Section. 

3382 J Krivoshekovo 4.18 p.m. 

3390 Ob 4.50 P.M. 

3605 Taiga (for Tomsk, 82 versts). 1.58 a.m. 

3743 Mariinsk 7.34 A.M. 

3932 Achinsk 2.50 p.m. 

4099 Krasnoyarsk 10.30 p.m. 

4326 Kansk 9.09 A.M. 

4633 Nijni Udinsk 1.38 a.m. 

4742 Tulun 8.26 A.M. 

5108 Irkutsk 7.15 A.M. 

* To turn versts into miles, multiply by , 66, 



\ Thursday 



Friday 



Saturday 
\ Sunday 
Monday 



ii6 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

The condensation of this table is shown by the fact that on 
three days only two stations each are given, and on two days 
only one station. Between Samara and Irkutsk nineteen stations 
are mentioned above; in reality there are two hundred and six. 
Therefore, stoppages play a large part in reducing the speed 
average, and if the rate of progress were at all uniform, seventeen 
miles an hour would be a very respectable figure. But for the 
first thousand versts, as far as Samara, the line is an important 
one in European Russia, and the speed of the train averages 
twenty-two miles an hour. Then, when the Urals are passed, 
a speed of nineteen miles is kept up for a long distance over the 
straight stretches of the Siberian plain. From Omsk to Taiga, 
nearly another thousand versts, it sinks to fifteen or sixteen, 
and after Taiga it drops to twelve miles an hour or less. In fact, 
for the last 1,500 miles of the long journey there was hardly a 
moment when I would not have backed myself to pass the train 
on a bicycle if there had been a decent road beside the track. And 
the present speed average will not be greatly increased until the 
whole line is relaid with heavier rails and solidly ballasted. 

But, though it is possible to find fault with the speed, the 
cost of the journey is beyond even a miser's criticism. There is 
nothing in the world like it. A few years ago, when it was dis- 
covered that the people were not making sufficient use of the 
railways, the heroic decision was made to put railway travelling 
literally within the reach of everyone. The zone system of 
charges was adopted, the tariff made cheaper the longer the jour- 
ney, and the rates put at an astoundingly low figure for the whole 
empire. Irkutsk, as I have said, is 3,371 miles from Moscow, 
and the journey thither occupies close upon nine days. The price 
of a first-class ticket is sixty-three roubles, and there are supple- 
mentary charges of 12.60 roubles for " express speed," 7.50 for 
the sleeping-berth, and three roubles for three changes of bed- 
linen en route. Total: 86.10 roubles; £9 2s.; $44.30. And this 
is for a train practically as luxurious as any in the world, and 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 117 

incomparably superior to the ordinary European or American 
train. The second-class fare for the same journey is only £6, 
or less than $30, and the third-class passenger, travelling by the 
ordinary daily train, and spending thirty hours more on the way, 
can actually travel these 3,371 miles for the ridiculous sum of 
about £2 14s., or, say, $13.50. It is officially stated that the 
through ticket from Moscow to Port Arthur or Vladivostok will 
cost 115 roubles, about £12, or $59, and a ticket from London 
or Paris to Shanghai 320 roubles, about £33 17s., or $165. The 
enlightenment which prescribes such fares should be reckoned 
to the credit of the Russian authorities, when we are noting down 
things to their debit. 

In laying the Siberian Hne one great mistake was made — 
far too light rails were ordered. The rail-makers pointed this out 
when they made their contracts, but an unwise economy pre- 
vailed, with the result that already the traf^fic is heavier than the 
rails can carry, and minor accidents are consequently frequent. 
The present weight is a little over sixteen pounds to the foot, and, 
as the ballast is only earth or sand, and the rails are merely spiked 
to the sleepers, after a day's rain the trains, as somebody has re- 
marked, run ofi the track like squirrels. This excuse, however, 
must be made for the authorities : when they planned the line they 
had no idea that traffic would develop as fast as it has done. In 
1900 no less than 758,000 tons of paying freight were carried, and 
yet the railway was wholly unable to move all that was offered, 
and I saw small mountains of grain still awaiting transportation as 
late as in November.* It is now the intention to relay the rails 

* "The gross income of the railway was reckoned in 1900 at 24.58 roubles [£2 los. 
— $12.68] per 1,000 car-axle versts (in 1899 it was 28.63 roubles l£^ — $14.57]), ^s 
compared with 36.23 roubles [^3 i6s. — $18.65] ^n all the other government railway 
lines. This low gross revenue is attributed to the great quantities of troops, govern- 
ment and railway stores that the line had to transport, at very low rates as regards the 
two first. The present gross revenue of the line is estimated at 5,000 roubles per 
verst, or about ;^230 per mile." — Mr. Consul-General J. Michell's Report for 1900, 
Annual Series, No. sj 08, page 18. The above equivalents within square brackets are 
my own, British Consuls not having leisure for such calculations. The Russian figures 



ii8 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

over the whole Hne, and, as a beginning, the track from Ob to 
Irkutsk will be relaid as soon as possible, a sum of 15,000,000 
roubles having been set aside for this purpose. The old rails will 
be used for fresh sidings, of which a large number, and over a 
hundred new stations, will be constructed. As a further striking 
example of the extraordinary development along this new rail- 
way, I may mention here that last year 1,075,000 passengers 
were carried, as against 417,000 in 1896. The stations them- 
selves are admirable. Except the quite unimportant ones, where 
no settlement yet exists, and the engine stops only to take water, 
they are prettily designed, the chief ones of brick, the rest of 
wood, hke Swiss chalets, and they are commodious in size. In 
no country that I know can such excellent food be had en route, 
and at every station there is a medicine chest, and an official 
corresponding to a dresser in one of our hospitals, called a Fel- 
scher, capable of treating simple ailments and rendering first aid 
to the injured. For his services and medicine no charge is per- 
mitted to be made. My photograph on p. 135 shows the water- 
tower and storehouse to be seen at every station, the latter being 
banked up to the roof with earth to keep out the cold. How se- 
vere this is may be judged from the fact that for a considerable 
distance on the Central Siberian section the earth never thaws, 
even in mid-summer, for more than two or three feet below the 
surface — a condition which makes it very difficult to find a solid 
foundation for buildings and bridge-piles. The line is watched 
by an army of men, no fewer than 4,000, for instance, being em- 
ployed between the Urals and Tomsk. One of these is stationed 
in his little wooden hut at every verst; he stands at attention, flag 
in hand, as the train approaches, and it is his duty to step into 
the middle of the track as soon as the train has passed, and hold 

are doubtless accurate, but the concludirug statement contains an extraordinary blun- 
der. Five thousand roubles per verst equals about ;^797 los., not ;^230, per mile. 
Inasmuch as 5,000 roubles is roughly ;^5oo, and a verst is about two-thirds of a mile, 
it is not unreasonable to think that even a Foreign Office proof-reader might have 
detected so palpable an error. 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 119 

up his staff as a signal that all is right. This figure may be ob- 
served in my photographs. Almost every one of these men — 
every one in Central Siberia — is an ex-convict or a deporte; yet 
although, as I shall have occasion to point out later, crime is rife 
in Siberia, and constitutes the chief drawback to the develop- 
ment of the country, I did not hear of a single offence com- 
mitted by one of these men. 

Beyond Irkutsk the railway was not yet open, but the line 
was in working order and the Governor-General, General Gore- 
mykin, was kind enough to give me a special train over it to 
Lake Baikal, and to place a government steam-launch at my 
disposal on the lake. This inland sea has an area of over 12,000 
square miles; its water is brilliantly clear, its depth is enormous 
and in many places unplumbed, and the solid mountains run sheer 
down to its edges. The terminus is a station called Baranchiki, 
just where the Angara empties itself into the lake, and a long 
wooden jetty leads to the sHp where the great ice-breaking, train- 
carrying steamer lies. The railway has now been begun round 
the southern end of the lake, though the cost of one hundred 
and fifty-five miles of line through such a country will be very 
great, but this Circum-Baikal section, the Knigobaikalskaya, 
is considered essential for heavy traffic, to provide an alterna- 
tive route if the steamers break down or cannot pass the ice, 
and not improbably to connect ultimately with a line direct to 
Peking. 

The firm of Sir William Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. 
has built upon Lake Baikal one of the most remarkable 
steamships in the world, to ferry the Siberian trains across 
the lake, and in winter to break the ice at the same time. 
The " Baikal " w^as brought out in pieces from Newcastle-on- 
Tyne, and put together by English engineers, who have been 
living in this remote and lonely spot for over two years. I 
found three of these hard at work, the chief, Mr. Douie, and 
his assistants, Mr. Renton and Mr. Handy, and spent some very 



I20 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

interesting hours with them. They ought to be well paid for 
the fine work they were doing, for a more dreary exile can hardly 
be imagined. They lived at a little village called Listvenitchnaya, 
a nest of crime and robbery, crowded during the summer with 
innumerable caravans bringing tea from China. Every civilised 
person carries a revolver there, and two if he is of a cautious 
temperament. Nobody thinks of going out after dark, and every 
week somebody is robbed or killed. The whole population is ex- 
convict or worse. The boss of the labourers on the Baikal was in 
Siberia for outraging a child; the man who conducted me to 
where Mr. Douie and Mr. Renton were at work was a murderer 
from the Caucasus; a short time before my visit another mur- 
derer employed on the ship had tried to repeat his crime, and 
had been consigned to chains again; the very day I was there 
the police were looking for a man supposed to have obtained 
work in the yard, who was wanted for killing eight people, I was 
told, at one time. There are a few Cossacks at Listvenitchnaya, 
but they are wholly incapable, even if they have the desire, of 
coping with the turbulent place. It may be the best policy for 
the Russian Government not to hang its murderers, or keep its 
criminals in confinement, but to turn them loose in such places. 
There can be no excuse, however, for its failure to provide an 
adequate police force to control them, or for the preposterous 
tolerance which allows every man of these criminals to go about 
armed to the teeth. A few months before my visit they held 
up the mail cart from Lake Baikal to Irkutsk, shot four of its five 
guards, and stole its gold. Some day they will hold up a train, 
and rob the passengers. Then authority will doubtless assert 
itself. I do not see anything to prevent such an act. In a place 
like this the English engineers have absolutely nothing to do 
or think about, except their work, and the long evenings of a 
Siberian winter, spent within fast-barred doors, must be inexpres- 
sibly dreary. 

The " Baikal " is a magnificent vessel of 4,000 tons, with twin 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 121 

engines amidships of 1,250 horse-power each, and a similar en- 
gine forward, to drive the screw in the bow; for the principle 
of the new type of ice-breaker is to draw out the water from 
under the ice ahead by the suction of a bow-screw, when the 
ice collapses by its own weight and a passage is forced through 
the broken mass by the impact of the vessel. As will be seen 
from my illustrations, the first that have been published, the 
*' Baikal" has extensive upper works, and these contain luxurious 




The Steamship ''Baikal" Steaming through the Ice. 



saloons and cabins. Upon her deck she carries three trains 
— a passenger train in the middle, and a freight train on each 
side. Her speed is thirteen knots, and on her trial trips she has 
shown herself capable of breaking through solid ice thirty-eight 
inches thick, with five inches of hard snow on the top — such snow 
is much more difficult to pierce than ice — and has forced her 
way through two thicknesses of ice frozen together, aggregat- 
ing from fifty-six to sixty-five inches. In summer her bow pro- 
peller should be removed, and large propellers substituted for her 



122 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



smaller winter ones; but so far the railway authorities have taken 
no steps to build a dock upon the lake, without which neither 
of these important changes can be effected, nor the steamer 
herself repaired if any mishap should damage her hull. Lake 
Baikal is frozen from the middle of December to the end of April, 
and there is also talk of laying a railway across upon the ice, as 
is done each year from St. Petersburg to Kronstadt; but proba- 
bly all depends upon the success of the ice-breaking steamer. 

If this accomplishes 
its purpose another 
similar vessel will be 
built, for obviously 
the entire trans-con- 
tinental service 
would otherwise be 
staked upon one ship 
never getting out of 
order the whole sea- 
son. The^'Yermak," 
however — the ice- 
breaker also built by 
Sir William Arm- 
strong, Whitworth 
& Co. for service in 
the Baltic — has been 
Breaking the Ice. ^^^j^ ^ splendid SUC- 

cess, forcing her way through mixed ice twenty-five feet 
thick, that there is every reason to presume the "Baikal" 
will do her work equally well. 

Upon the opposite side of Lake Baikal the starting station 
is Misovaya, thirty-nine miles from Baranchiki, and there the 
railway enters upon a great plateau and reaches its highest point 
in the Yablonoi Mountains at 3,412 feet. This has been the 
most trying section of the line to build, and the last rail was 




Bow of the "Baikar 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY laj 

laid only on December 28, 1899. As originally announced, the 
intention was to continue the railway right through to Khabar- 
ofsk, whence trains have been running for some time to Vladivos- 
tok. But there is good reason to think that the Russian Gov- 
ernment never really expected to have to do this, and was well 
aware that before the rest of the line could be finished an arrange- 
ment with China would permit her to carry the railway through 
Manchuria, thus not only giving her virtual control of this most 
valuable province but also greatly shortening the entire length. 
The route will, therefore, now be from Misovaya to Stretensk, 
605 miles; by steamer, larger or smaller according as the water 
is higher or lower, down the Shilka and Amur rivers, 1,428 miles, 
to Khabarofsk; and thence to Vladivostok, 252 miles. Total 
distance from Moscow by this route, 4,307 miles by railway, and 
1,467 miles by steamer. 

The Boxer rising has so disorganised and delayed everything 
connected with the Trans-Baikal section of the line that no 
through times can be accurately given. But previous to these 
disturbances it was ofhcially stated that in summer the journey 
from Moscow to Vladivostok would, until the completion of the 
Manchurian lines, occupy about twenty days. Just before the 
Chinese commenced hostilities a friend of mine made the com- 
plete journey as quickly as possible — the railway not being yet 
organised for through traffic. With much courteous help from 
the authorities, and doing one long stretch in Eastern Siberia in 
a horse-box, his itinerary was as follows: 



Vladivostok May 17,18 

Khabarofsk May 19, 20 

Blagovyeshchensk May 27-29 

Pokovkhra June 4-6 

Stretensk June 9-1 1 

Baikal June 1 5 

Irkutsk June 16 

Moscow (late) June 23 



124 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

That is, the journey took thirty-eight days. But it will be noticed 
that no fewer than twenty days were spent on the Amur and 
Shilka rivers, this dreary delay being due to the fact that shallow 
water reduced the rate of speed at times to next to nothing, and 
at other times stopped the steamer altogether. This was excep- 
tional, even at this time of year, and allowing for the fact that 
the journey was against the current. Moreover, as I have ex- 
plained above, this river journey is only a temporary expedient, 
to connect the two ends of the railway while the Manchurian 
railway is under construction, and it will be observed that the 
journey from Irkutsk to Moscow has been considerably shortened 
even since I made it a few months previously.^ 

The ultimate route will be from Misovaya, on Lake Baikal, 
to Khaidalovo, a short distance on this side of Stretensk, thence 

* The line from Khaidalova to the Chinese frontier, connecting the Siberian Rail- 
way with the Manchurian Railway, has been opened for traffic. Moreover, since this 
chapter was written, the last rail of the Northern Manchurian section was laid on No- 
vember 3, 1 90 1, completing the all-rail connection between Moscow and the Far East- 
ern termini, and by eliminating the river journey between Stretensk and Khabarofsk 
greatly shortening the through journey, in which there will now be only one change of 
cars (at Lake Baikal) between Moscow and Port Arthur (to which the branch from 
Kharbin is already open) or Vladivostok. This event has been announced by M. de 
Witte in the following address to the Tsar : 

"On May 19, 1891, your Majesty, at Vladivostok, turned with your own hand the 
first sod of the Great Siberian Railway. To-day, on the anniversary of your accession 
to the throne, the East Asiatic Railway line is completed. I venture to express to 
your Majesty from the bottom of my heart my loyal congratulation on this historic 
event. With the laying of the rails for a distance of 2,400 versts, from the Transbaikal 
territory to Vladivostok and Port Arthur, our enterprise in Manchuria is practically, 
though not entirely, concluded. Notwithstanding exceptionally difficult conditions 
and the destruction of a large portion of the line last year, temporary traffic can, from 
to-day, be carried on along the whole system. I hope that within two years hence all 
the remaining work to be done will be completed and that the railway will be opened 
for permanent regular traffic." 

The Tsar replied as follows : 

" I thank you sincerely for your joyful communication. I congratulate you on the 
completion within so short a time and amid incredible difficulties of one of the greatest 
railway undertakings of the world." 

I may add that M. Lessar, the new Russian Minister to China, performed the 
through journey in twenty days, but for political reasons every effort was made to 
convey him to his post as quickly as possible. 



THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 125 

across Manchuria to Nikholsk, sixty miles above Vladivostok, 
with a branch line from Kharbin, the centre of Manchuria, to 
Mukden, whence three other branches lead respectively to 
Niuchwang, Port Arthur, and Peking. The last of these is 
nominally built by the Russo-Chinese Banking Company, but 
this is a mere form of words — the whole line is as Russian 
as Moscow. The Manchurian railway will be 950 miles long, 
and the southern branch 646 miles, and when all this is com- 
pleted the total length of the Great Siberian Railway will be 
5,486 miles. 

The following will then be the shortest route between the 
United States and the Far East via Siberia: New York, Havre, 
Paris (London passengers will go via Dover and Ostend to 
Cologne), Cologne, BerHn, Alexandrovo, Warsaw, Moscow, Tula,' 
Samara, Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk, Stretensk, Mukden, Port Arthur, 
and the total length of this journey (excluding the Atlantic) 
about 7,300 miles, of which 297 miles will be in France, 99 miles 
in Belgium, 660 miles in Germany, 2,310 miles in European Rus- 
sia, and about 4,000 in Asiatic Russia. These are the ofBcial 
figures. 

One other possibility must be mentioned — it is always un- 
safe to say that any Russian plan is final — namely, that the whole 
direction of the Trans-Baikalian line will once more be altered, 
as I have suggested above, and that a line will be run due south- 
east from Irkutsk to Peking along the old caravan road through 
Kiakhta, and across the desert. 

This would again enormously shorten the through journey; 
there are no insuperable physical dii^culties; if China is coerced 
into consenting while England still has her hands full in South 
Africa, and Japan remains passive, there wih be no political ob- 
stacle; and the political and strategical results will be infinitely 
more important than the commercial ones, for it will give Russia 
definitive control over the whole of Northern China. But this, 
unless a wiser diplomacy arises meanwhile, might mean war with 



126 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

England and Japan, sooner or later, whether America strikes a 
blow for her trade or not. 

Finally, the Siberian Railway is officially estimated to cost, 
when completed, 780,000,000 roubles (£82,500,000 — $401,362,- 
000), of which 500,000,000 roubles (£53,000,000 — $257,283,000), 
were spent by the end of 1899, and 130,000,000 roubles (£13,745,- 
000 — $66,893,000) were allocated to the work of 1900. From 
what I saw, I concluded that the official estimate will be largely 
exceeded. Before this gigantic enterprise is finished it is not 
likely to cost much less than £100,000,000 ($500,000,000). 

Since the Great Wall of China the world has seen no one 
material undertaking of equal magnitude. That Russia, single- 
handed, should have conceived it and carried it out, makes imag- 
ination falter before her future influence upon the course of events. 
Its strategical results are already easy to foresee. It will con- 
solidate Russian influence in the Far East in a manner yet un- 
dreamed of. But this will be by slow steps. The expectation 
that the line would serve at a moment of danger, or in pursuit of a 
suddenly executed coup, to throw masses of soldiers from Europe 
into China, is yet far from realisation. The line and its organisa- 
tion would break down utterly under such pressure. But bit by 
bit it will grow in capacity, and the Powers which have enormous 
interests at stake in the Far East, if they continue to sleep as 
England has done of late, will wake to find a new, solid, impene- 
trable, self-sufficing Russia dominating China as she has dom- 
inated, sooner or later, every other Oriental land against whose 
frontier she has laid her own. 



CHAPTER VIII 

SIBERIA FROM THE TRAIN 

TO Siberia! The mere name still causes a shudder. An 
ice-bound land, inconceivably remote, a few miserable, 
lonely towns, the endless tramp of the chain-gang, the horrors 
of the prison and the mine, the bark of the wolf-pack in the forest, 
banishment, despair — that is Siberia as most people have been 
taught — often maliciously — to imagine it. A land where spring 
blazes with flowers as nowhere else, thousands of square miles of 
golden grain, an unimaginable wealth of minerals, forests beyond 
computation, a net-work of great waterways without parallel, 
all to be seen from a drawing-room on wheels, with servants and 
tea and cigarettes ever at your elbow and an official invitation 
to complain if the temperature rises or falls more than a few 
degrees — that is a much truer picture. Between the rose-colour 
and the horror there is a mid-stratum of plain fact of much interest 
and importance to the world, and I will try to describe a journey 
through Siberia as it actually is. 

I left the train blazing out of Moscow^ station, amid cheers 
and tears. Everyone is tired with leave-taking, and most pas- 
sengers are facing a long absence from home. So, in response 
to an early summons, a big Tatar, in blue linen blouse, with a 
twisted scar upon his forehead which suggests contact with some 
fierce crooked Eastern blade, comes in and makes up the broad 
bed in a manner very neat and prompt; the book of statistics 
of Russian commercial activities slips from the foreign traveller's 
hand, a last effort disconnects the electric lamp and pulls the 

blue silk curtains over the twin roof-lamps, and so, wrapped in 

127 



128 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



a cloudy maze of anticipations and rocked softly by the murmur 
of the wheels of the Siberian Express, he falls on sleep. 

Morning shows a country mostly fiat as a billiard-table, 
patched with fields of corn-stubble, with stretches of emerald-col- 
oured winter rye and intervals of birch forest, scattered over with 
gray-roofed villages — little, flat, shed-hke houses all huddled to- 
gether and reminding one of the kind of gray scab that clusters 
and spreads on the back of a diseased leaf. There is nothing of 
the industry and economy of Erench cultivation, nor of the rich 




The Last Station in Europe. 



farmyards and sleek herds of England, but the soil is tilled every- 
where, and the harvest is gathered and sold. Enormous stacks of 
straw testify to the abundant harvest of this season. All the 
houses are of wood, gray with age, often dilapidated, the wide 
roads straggle through them, mere mud-tracks in rainy weather, 
and there is almost always a white church with a green roof. But 
never a superior house, never the residence of some one well- 
to-do. These villages have no squire and no Lady Bountiful. 
Without exception they exhibit one dull level of poverty, one 



SIBERIA FROM THE TRAIN 



129 



unbroken record of toil which just keeps a roof and a fire and 
finds a meagre sustenance. The price of wheat is very low, for 
want of transport, and the middle-man — a Russian, not a Jew — 
pockets most of the profits. As we get farther east we pass 
more prosperous colonies of Bashkirs, one of the many strange 
native races scattered over Eastern Russia. Here is agriculture 
in its most primitive aspect. Half a dozen shaggy little horses, 
tied head and tail, trot briskly in a circle, knee-deep in wheat, 
and in the middle stands the peasant with a whip, urging them 




The Boundary Between Europe and Asia. 



on like the ring-master in a circus. There is no need to muzzle 
the beast that treadeth out the corn; he is kept moving so fast 
that he never has a chance to lower his head. Near by is a similar 
ring, where a man is winnowing by the simple method of tossing 
great shovelfuls of the grain into the air, and the chaff sails away 
in clouds. Much of this grain goes to the windmills which cluster 
round the little towns. One of these, Morchansk, has hundreds 
within the space of a few acres, all turning busily in the light 
wind. The peasants hereabouts have a curious superstition which 



ijo ALL THE RUSSIAS 

prevents them from selling their wheat except as flour. They 
believe that if they sell the grain they lose the vitality of the 
seed for their next sowing. Superstition, indeed, is encountered 
in Russia at every step. In this very town of Morchansk, for 
instance, only a few years ago, a wealthy merchant was found 
to have a secret iron-barred cellar deep under his house, where 
the shocking mutilations of the Skoptsi sect, of which I spoke 
in an earlier chapter, were perpetrated. They were all sent to 
Siberia, where they are very likely making new converts. 

We are making nearly thirty miles an hour, express speed 
in Russia, for the line here is well laid and well ballasted. We 
are still in Europe and on a main line. At the tail of the train, 
common to both first and second-class passengers, is an observa- 
tion car with four arm-chairs and a few folding stools in it, where, 
while the day passes and we find ourselves more and more fas- 
cinated as the landscape eliminates useless details from itself and 
settles down to a few very elementary and persistent traits, we 
spend much time. The vast agricultural plain is at last broken 
by the expanse of the Volga, a mile wide at low water and four 
miles when the river is in flood, which we cross at Batraki by 
the magnificent Alexandrofski Bridge, with its thirteen enormous 
spans. It is close upon a mile long, but even with this length 
the river has to be squeezed together by a three-mile dam before 
it can be crossed. Then the town of Samara, the junction of the 
great railway and the great river, then over another bridge across 
the Ufa River, and the climb over the Ural Mountains begins. 

Russians had raved to us about these mountains, but the 
truth is that Russians are not good judges of mountains — as in- 
deed, how should they be, when in the whole of European Rus- 
sia there is no land as high as the Washington Monument? 
Those in whom the Urals excite immoderate enthusiasm can 
never have seen the Tyrol and do not know the Grampians. Let 
it be said at once that the Urals cannot hold a pine-knot to either. 

Where the firs clothe them closely, the hills seem to be wear- 



SIBERIA FROM THE TRAIN 



131 



ing a mantle of rough green frieze, but presently larches, yellow- 
ing fast in this perfect October weather, burn like flambeaux 
among the green, and beside the shallow river, wimpling over 
its stony bed, and through the fords of stepping-stones built 
curiously in a fork shape, the purple thicket of bare alder-twigs 




The Town of Zlataoust from the Railway. 

makes planes of soft, quiet colour. Your fir or pine en masse is 
an inartistic tree; the repetition of his even points becomes tire- 
some, and he gives the outline of the mountains a line regular 
as the teeth of a comb, which should be the despair of the painter. 
Therefore painters wisely let these fir countries alone. 

In a few places, at the water-parting, which occurs near the 
town of Zlataoust, the pine gives way and the gray stone triumphs 



132 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

where a few points, the highest of any in this southern end of the 
chain, rise bare against the sky. A little stir among the engineers, 
who courteously desire that I shall lose nothing, causes me to 
glue myself to the window and stare into the forest in my de- 
sire not to miss the frontier-post, the actual definite spot, beyond 
the station of Urjumka, where Europe ends and Asia begins, the 
only place, except one other in these same mountains and one 
in the Caucasus, where Europe and Asia are joined by railway. 
It has been marked, as we presently see, by a Httle uninspired 
monument, some ten feet high, in yellow freestone. It is a simple 
base with a stone-built, pointed column on the top — the sort of 
thing you may find behind some trees in the park of a noble- 
man, raised to mark the resting-place of his favourite fox-terrier. 
I do not detect any inscription upon its front, as the train passes 
at such a speed that to photograph it I have to set my shutter 
at the hundredth part of a second, with the result you see. Indif- 
ferent, the passengers barely interrupt their endless tea and talk 
and cigarettes, but we are silent, thoughtful, oppressed, fraught 
with vague realisations of the significance of this bit of earth; 
idly we compose, with feelings that should thrill a Russian, but 
are, save for our sense of the sentiment, alien to us, the legend 
that might be cut upon this fateful pillar. Russia, who has not 
looked back, here first pushed her plough beyond the last limit 
of Europe. Here she girded herself for that long and bloody 
march across the Asian plain; what a journey, how long since be- 
gun, how strenuously pursued, how rich in human incident, how 
bitter with human suffering ! Here passed her trains of chained 
convicts — convicts whose tears made Europe weep; here, even 
here, defiled the long line of exiles, reft from their homes to make 
warm a spot in Asia for the coming thousands. Here passed 
the Poles, a hundred years ago, when Russia first took up that 
burden on her western border — the burden that has meant riches 
and industrial expansion to her ever since — many thousand of 
them went this way. Here she held her Cossacks, always in 



SIBERIA FROM THE TRAIN 133 

harness of war, hurrying the laggard and the fugitive. Here, 
to-day, when so much has been done and said and suffered, so 
much spent and lost and gained, here passes this emblem of her 
success, carrying an earnest, even to the confines of China, of 
what she has done and what in the future she means to do — the 
Great Siberian Express. No, on second thought there is no 
room on that monument, nor yet space on the broadest hillside 
of her forgotten boundary, to write the story that surges to the 
surface of one's imagination. 

The Urals produce, as everybody knows, most kinds of pre- 
cious stones and vast quantities of iron. The centre of the min- 




Gold-diggers Waiting for the Train. 

eral industry is at Zlataoust, twenty-four hours beyond Samara. 
A lovely glimpse of the town itself is caught after leaving the 
station. Built in a valley, it surrounds part of a large artificial 
lake which was produced by damming up the little river to supply 
water-power to its foundries. This was not a success, and Zlata- 
oust must forever look out upon an expensive failure, which 
nevertheless constitutes its chief attraction as a town. Almost 
before the train stopped, our passengers were clustering round 
three kiosks on the platform, where a thousand little objects in 
black iron, all of unspeakable ugliness, were for sale as souvenirs. 



134 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



An enthusiastic engineer showed me the walking-stick he had 
bought of '' vrai acier," but, unfortunately, when he bent it dou- 
ble on the platform to show the trueness of its metal, the resili- 
ence of its spring, it remained in a disheartened curve, no better 
than a wilted dahlia-stalk. There is sure to be a bayonet factory 
at Zlataoust. At Chelyabinsk, however, four hours later, on the 
eastern verge of the Urals, the platform output was charming: 
pink, red, and green jasper, shining rock crystal, lumps of mal- 
achite that had been , suddenly cooled ofif while boiHng (when 




What You See for Days from the Siberian Express. 



the world was made), of the vivid verdigris-green that is like 
nothing else. The palaces and galleries of St. Petersburg and 
Moscow are full of vases and tables and basins of these jaspers 
and lapis lazuli, and nothing could be more beautiful if only the 
makers would follow classic shapes instead of choosing as their 
models the stucco horrors of the suburban garden, or of inlaying 
tables with diamond-work in contrasting colours which ape the 
patchwork bed-quilt of the cook's aunt. But the little ash-trays 
in cloudy rose jasper, polished only on one side, are the best pres- 



SIBERIA FROM THE TRAIN 135 

ents to bring back to friends who have been very good, as a me- 
mento of that town where convicts and exiles used to be gathered 
in enormous sheds and sorted over before being drafted to places 
where their labour was required or where their vices — when they 
had any — would remain unheard of. To-day every spring sees 
huge crowds of peasant emigrants to Siberia, undergoing ex- 
amination and selection at Chelyabinsk before being distributed 
according to a regular scheme of colonisation. 

From Chelyabinsk onward the train crosses the great Siberian 




The Water-tower and Storehouse at Every Station. 

plain, and this may be said to continue as far as Tomsk, more 
than seven hundred miles away. From Wednesday noon till Fri- 
day morning, except for the rivers you could hardly tell one piece 
of the monotonous landscape from another. But the more you 
see of it, the more it appeals to you. Infinitely simple in its long, 
sunburnt expanses to right, to left, and behind the train, dotted 
sparsely with meagre beasts which may be dromedaries, may be 
oxen, may be horses ; broken by tracts of bog where silver birches, 
very old and very small, struggle for their life; flecked here and 



136 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

there at wide intervals by a wooden hut or the rounded tent of 
a Khirghiz; cut through by winding sandy ways where carts 
move like flies in October, faint and slow — there is yet something 
singularly winning about this landscape, even though the pathos 
of miles of purple heather and gray and black moorland is wholly 
missing. 

For an idea of the monotony of this part of the journey I must 
refer the reader to my photographs. Words will not describe 
it. Several times for more than an hour the track is perfectly 
straight — without even the suggestion of a curve. A cantion- 
ball fired from between the rails would fall between them a dozen 
miles away, if the aim were true and the trajectory faultless. 
There is positively one stretch where the line is as straight as a 
plumb-line for nearly eighty miles, and it should be easy to imag- 
ine the hypnotic effect of sitting in the middle of the observation- 
car and watching the twin lines of steel unroll themselves from 
under your feet, and roll away again out of sight over the edge 
of the world, till day passes, and sunset, flooding the plain with 
gold and scarlet and purple, receives them into its blazing abyss. 
What a horizon, what a sense of space and detachment! The 
mind breathes, the dust of great cities is a cloud nothing like so 
large as a man's hand, and everything is far away, except to- 
day and yesterday, which in the desert and the steppe are the 
same, one with another. 

In these early days of October the great blossoming of the 
plain is over for the year. East of the Urals there is no oak, nor 
ash, nor elm, nor hazel, nor apple, to people the landscape, and 
no autumn-flowering plant blooms beside the way, only an in- 
finite variety of reeds, and where the fine natural hay was taken 
in June, a crop of tall weeds, stark and brown, their heads still 
holding up the empty seed-vessels, architectural in their exact 
branchings. Sometimes in the black, shallow cutting beside the 
track, whence the ballast had been digged, I saw certain bulb- 
rooted plants with round whorls of leaves that should have shel- 



SIBERIA FROM THE TRAIN 



137 



tered either a lily or an orchid spike this summer, and once or 
twice a big bulrush — at least, that rush which suffered an aesthetic 
renaissance in England under this name, and is not a bulrush at 
all — stood up very high. Already a cocoon-like fluff was taking 
the place of the close brown velvet covering, and he was soon 
to seed freely — the familiar sacrifice of the individual in the in- 
terest of the species. He will not be there, that brown velvet 
bulrush, when I return from Irkutsk in a month, but then — the 




The Regular Siberian Station. 

widespread rushy hopes of next summer! Not only bulrushes, 
but every kind of high-water grass and reed, the whole gamut 
from grass to bamboo, wave and whisper and whistle in wide 
beds. At last you have under your eye the real country for the 
Marsh-King's Daughter. Hans Andersen, who knew marshes 
as no one before him or since, who has left in every teachable 
mmd that reads him some enduring sense of their poetry, would 
have loved this part of Siberia. What romance could he not 
have written of these bowed birches, " the white ladies of the for- 



138 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

est," with stems of silver, here positively frost-white, and fine 
purple twigs weeping evenly to the northward. He would have 
peopled these thickets of black alder with a weird water-life. And 
suddenly, after days of it, in a second it is swept away; alder, 
birch, willow, and reed-bed alike disappear, and, as though planted 
by the hand of man in a straight line across this worldscape, the 
Siberian cedar, to be readily mistaken for an ill-nourished fir-tree 
with a yellowish tinge about the needles, springing from a rich 
madder-coloured bed of heath and heather, usurps the scene. It 
is after twelve o'clock by local time; enter the Siberian cedar at 
some mysterious nature-cue, exeunt birches and the rest that have 
followed us so faithfully from the western verges of Russia. We 
are now to have nothing but Siberian cedar all day. 

For a thousand versts this Siberian plain hardly changes its 
character. The silver birches are always by our side, and some- 
times the woods take on a more solid shape. Round the settle- 
ments herds of bl^k and white cows graze, and for a few 'miles 
we pass through stubble fields, and great heaps of grain, in sacks, 
covered with tarpaulins, are piled up at the stations awaiting 
transport. But these oases of industry hardly count in the long 
monotonous steppe. Once a picturesque group of Tatars, come 
back from gold-washing, attracts attention, and again we see the 
devastated track of a forest fire. Occasionally we take a meal at 
a station, for the buffets are everywhere excellent and put to 
shame the wretched railway counters in the heart of populous 
England. The stations themselves are all beautifully built of 
wood, neat and clean, surrounded with pretty palisades, each hav- 
ing its water-tower and fire-engine house, and offering to the 
third-class traveller free boiling water for his teapot and cold 
boiled water to drink. We pass a train of convicts, going to 
Irkutsk, all the windows barred with iron, and a sentry with fixed 
bayonet at the entrance of each carriage. By showing my official 
letter to the colonel in command I get permission to pass through 
the train. The prisoners consist of convicts, in chains, and simple 



SIBERIA FROM THE TRAIN 



139 



exiles, the wives and children of the latter accompanying them. 
Their accommodation is warm and comfortable, and except some 
of the convicts, who are obviously savages, they seem in good 
spirits. Several times, too, we meet trains of returning colonists, 
who have either been to Siberia for the harvest, or are returning 
disappointed and dissatisfied. This latter category includes a 
regular percentage of all who emigrate voluntarily. 

The vast agricultural plain is, of course, the predominating 
impression left by this journey; indeed, there is no other such 




Siberian Peasants Watching the Train. 

plain in the world. Statistics of the size of Siberia may be found 
in every book of reference, but it is impossible not to reproduce 
some of them when describing a journey through the land. It 
is, then, over 5,000,000 square miles in area, half as large again 
as the whole of Europe; it covers 32 degrees of latitude, and 
no fewer than 130 degrees of longitude; it possesses a mag- 
nificent series of rivers running with fan-like branches north 
and south, with a total navigable length of 27,920 miles; some 



140 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



of these rivers have been proved to be easily navigable .v^ith care 
from the Arctic Sea, and so astonishingly complete is this natural 
network of waterways that, with the aid of one canal, steamers 
of a considerable size have been built in England and taken under 
their own steam to Lake Baikal, nearly 3,500 miles east of Mos- 
cow. The zone of colonisation lies to the south of 64 degrees 
north latitude, for above this is the zone of polar tundra — a wilder- 
ness of marsh and moss, with stunted bushes for its only vegeta- 
tion, frozen during the greater part of the year, and incapable 
of supporting any life except that pf the scattered tribes of Arctic 




Building a Hut in the Taiga. 



natives who roam about and manage not to perish in it. But 
south of this there is in Western Siberia alone a cultivable area 
of six thousand geographical square miles. 

The landscape changes a third time between Moscow and 
Irkutsk. This is at Taiga, whence a branch line of fifty-four 
miles leads to Tomsk. The w^ord Taiga means primeval forest. 
A couple of years ago this place was but a name and a stopping- 
place for the trains. To-day it is a smart little town and growing 
fast. Beyond it the line plunges into the virgin woods. The 



SIBERIA FROM THE TRAIN 141 

first passenger train left it, eastward bound, on New Year's Day, 
1899, and the bridge at Krasnoyarsk was only finished in March 
of the same year, permitting trains to proceed without a break 
to Irkutsk, the present terminus. Our train has no longer an 
engine with air-compressor for the Westinghouse brake, there- 
fore our speed, never great, dwindles to a crawl, and for nearly 
a thousand miles, from Friday till Monday, we dawdle along, 
almost always through an unbroken forest of silver birch, pine, 
larch and cedar, with occasional clearings and innumerable Uttle 
stations. From the train only small timber is in sight, but back 
in the forest there is an inexhaustible supply of serviceable trees, 
and a special department has been recently created for the eco- 
nomic deforestation of these Siberian provinces, the outlet being 
a great timber port to be formed at the mouth of the Ob. At 
each station we make a long halt. They are charming places, 
admirably built, and prettily decorated, and round each of them 
a circle of civilisation is spreading. At last, at noon on Monday, 
nine days and 3,371 miles from Moscow, after passing a zone of 
rolling country with Highland scenery, we come in sight of a 
large town encircled by a great river, its churches and public 
buildings visible from far away. This is Irkutsk, the end, for the 
present, of the Great Siberian Railway, the boundary of Eastern 
Siberia, the junction of Europe, so to speak, for trade by land 
with Peking, and not much more than a hundred miles from the 
frontier of China. 



CHAPTER IX 



SIBERIAN CIVILISATION 



THE chief towns of Siberia are naturally still those that had 
grown up and flourished before the railway was constructed 
— Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, and Irkutsk. Others will of 
course soon be created, and in several cases they will supersede 

the old ones. After a 
thousand versts of the Si- 
berian plain the first im- 
portant station, Omsk, is 
a genuine surprise. At 
dusk you pass over the 
great river with a well-lit 
passenger steamer plying 
upon it — pass over it by 
a handsome girder bridge. 
Then a promising net- 
work of sidings begins, and, after the manner of Siberian 
trains, you steal very slowly into the electric-lit station of 
Omsk. A neat and pretty brick building greets you, the silent, 
impassive figures of peasants in sheepskins grouped about 
its doors. You pass into the usual hall which is waiting-room 
and restaurant combined; well-set tables with tall palms — 
imitation palms of course — standing in them, and tall crystal 
candelabra veiled in red muslin. At one side is the tea-counter, 
its brass samovar purring softly; at another a display of hot dishes 
to tempt the hungry, with a chef of smiling face and much-starched 

linen waving his knife above the baked meats. The proffered 

142 




The Tower of the Fire-watch, Irkutsk. 



SIBERIAN CIVILISATION 145 

meal was so attractive that we took it here instead of in the res- 
taurant-car, and nothing could have been better. The town of 
Omsk is only Tomsk on a smaller scale, and Tomsk has a mystery 
of its own. It was originally selected for the administrative and 
educational centre of Siberia, and its public buildings were erect- 
ed on this scale. Its university is splendidly housed; it has an am- 
bitious theatre; one of the three Government gold laboratories 
is there; the prison was the principal distributing station of Si- 
beria; it is lighted by electricity; it is the focus of a great agri- 
cultural district; it has over 50,000 inhabitants; there was every 
reason to suppose that its happy development would be parallel 
with that of the railway itself. To-day it is going down-hill, for 
the simple reason that the railway is fifty-four miles away — a 
journey of five hours — and that even then the station is a long 
drive through the woods from the town. I heard many explana- 
tions of this extraordinary arrangement: that the land around 
the town was too swampy, that too costly bridges would have 
had to be built, that the engineers who laid out the line left the 
town aside because its inhabitants would not agree to certain con- 
ditions advantageous to the proposers. Which is true I do not 
know, but it is certain that Taiga, the station for Tomsk on the 
main line, was only a couple of tents in the wilderness three years 
ago, and that to-day it is a considerable settlement, growing 
rapidly into a town, destined beyond question to thrive at the 
expense of the city so proudly planned to be the heart of Si- 
beria. Tomsk reminds one of a rapidly grown Western Ameri- 
can town, except that it has several far finer permanent build- 
ings. The streets are its least civilised characteristic, for, except 
in winter, they are either ankle-deep in dust or knee-deep in 
mud, and winter comes so suddenly that the townspeople some- 
times wade through mud to the theatre and find the roads frozen 
solid when they come out, while by next morning there are 
thirty degrees of frost. 

Omsk, to my thinking, will necessarily become the chief Si- 



146 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

berian town, because of its magnificent waterways, its surround- 
ing agriculture, its gold-mining, and, above all, its proximity 
to the colossal deposits of coal that have been discovered to the 
south of it, the copper-mines not far off, and the probability that 
some day a railway will run southeast from it to connect Siberia 
with Central Asia. 

For the present, however, Irkutsk is a more important place, 
and indeed, at first sight, as it nestles within the embrace of the 
broad Angara, it is charming, and one is astonished at the pro- 
portion of imposing buildings rising from the flat brown mass of 
wooden houses. A second surprise is that the suburb where the 
station is situated is called Glascow. But when you drive away 
through mud a couple of feet deep, in which the droschky rolls 
about so alarmingly that people invariably ride with their arms 
about each others' waists, you fear that first appearances were de- 
ceptive. The streets, in fact, are awful, and the local paper of 
the morning after my arrival told how two little boys returning 
from school fell in the middle of the street and were only just 
rescued from drowning by some passing carters. Your first im- 
pression, however, returns and remains when you have seen more 
of this remote Siberian capital. It is an astonishing place. 

Here are a few plain facts to begin with. Irkutsk has 51,464 
inhabitants. It spends ten per cent, of its municipal income on 
primary education. It has five hospitals and thirty doctors. 
There is an astronomical and meteorological observatory, of 
which the magnetic observations possess peculiar importance. 
Its theatre, a handsome building of brick and stone, cost over 
£30,000. There is a museum, an offshoot of the Russian Geo- 
graphical Society, with an extremely interesting ethnological 
collection, as well as almost complete collections of the birds 
and animals of the district. From its telegraph of^ce mes- 
sages can be sent to any part of the world in any language, but 
I must add that a telegram sent to me from London on Monday 
was only delivered at midday on Friday. There is a perfectly 
organised telephone service, and the outlying manufactories, one 



SIBERIAN CIVILISATION 



147 



of them as much as sixty miles away, are all connected with the 
city by telephone. A fire-extinguishing service is excellently 
equipped with an English stearn fire-engine among other appar- 
atus, and I saw some smart drill. Finally, besides an imposing 
cathedral, Irkutsk boasts no fewer than twenty Orthodox 
churches, one Roman Catholic and one Lutheran chapel, two 
synagogues, and two monasteries, for in Siberia a greater re- 
ligious tolerance exists than in Russia. That is not a bad list 
for a town which, until a few months ago, could only be reached 




The Technical School, Irkutsk. 

by an exhausting journey of several weeks, driving at full speed 
day and night. 

There is an air of well-being about the place, however, which 
says more than any catalogue of facts. I have seldom been more 
surprised than when, on the evening of my arrival, I started out 
to make a few purchases. I wanted some sardines and sugar 
and similar supplies, and I found myself in a shop which for size, 
arrangement, and variety of stock would compare with those of 
the West End of London, except, perhaps, such exceptional pur- 
veyors of luxuries as Morell's and Fortnum & Mason's. Next 
I wanted some photographic materials, and the first thing that 
caught my eye was a complete assortment of Zeiss lenses, of the 
latest pattern — the most expensive lenses in the market. Two 



148 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

stationers' shops and a chemist's were certainly equal to the 
average of such places in any of the capitals of the world, and in 
another I saw such a stock of guns, rifles, revolvers, cutlery, and 
electric fittings as I have never seen in one place before. I should 
be at a loss where to look in London for such a selection of tele- 
phones, for instance, of every make and size, as were displayed in 
this Siberian shop. Such things would not be brought all these 
thousands of miles unless there were people who understood them 
and could afiford to buy them, and it is this inference which causes 
the surprise. Similarly, the outsides of the houses, with their 
thick wooden walls and stoutly barred gates, do not suggest 
wealth and culture; but when you have passed some of these 
outer barriers you find yourself in homes which, for luxury and 
taste, are in no way behind rich men's houses elsewhere in the 
world, and where you are entertained with a hospitality as lavish 
and as elegant as that of Mayfair. These belong to men who 
have made great fortunes in Siberia and who are happy to re- 
main there. They are generous men, too, and there are proba- 
bly few towns of its size in the world with so many monuments 
of private beneficence in the shape of schools, hospitals, orphan- 
ages, and the like. 

Irkutsk, however, is not saved by its churches from an amount 
of crime, actual and potential, that would be considered excessive 
in a new mining-camp. The night before I arrived a church was 
ransacked of its plate; the night of my arrival the principal jewel- 
ler's shop was robbed ; a few days later a flourishing manufactory 
of false passports — a peculiarly heinous crime in Russia — was 
raided by the police; the day I visited the prison a man clubbed 
nearly to death, who never recovered consciousness, was picked 
up in the street ; a short time previously the mail, carrying gold- 
dust, had been ambushed and three of its armed guards shot ; and 
no respectable citizen would dream of passing alone through its 
suburbs after dark. Indeed people often fire a revolver shot out 
of the window before going to bed, to remind whom it may con- 
cern that a strong man armed keepeth his goods. I do not know 



SIBERIAN CIVILISATION 



149 



how many police there are in this city of 50,000 people, but 
during the week of my stay I saw only two or three, and once 
when I had to drive across the town at nine o'clock at night I did 
not see a single living thing out of doors. 

The principal shops and the best houses are all in one street, 
and as the side streets get farther from this they become poorer 
and rougher. There is something suggestive of China in long 
stretches of wooden walls and heavy gates. There are, of course, 
hundreds of Chinese about, and rows of Chinese shops, where the 
furniture, the clothing, the tea, and the various culinary and 




The Museum, Irkutsk. 



medicinal abominations dear to the Celestial mind are for sale. 
Stolid Mongols, too, hung with silver, have come through with 
their caravans from China, and every now and then you see a 
tired passenger stretched out in a tarantass amid his hetero- 
geneous luggage, who has probably been driving day and night 
for a week or two, for Irkutsk is the focus of five great post roads. 
The hotel is a trial to mind and body, but a new one, the Metro- 
pole, is just completed and will apparently offer more civilised ac- 
commodation. Living is, of course, very dear, as everything, 
except meat and flour and beer — an enterprising German is coin- 
ing money by brewing excellent lager — has to be brought so far 



I50 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

by rail. One of my most interesting visits was to the Govern- 
ment Gold Laboratory, where the director was kind enough to 
have a special operation of weighing and smelting the dust car- 
ried out for my benefit. Gold is disposed of in Siberia in a wholly 
different manner from elsewhere. Every grain of it has to be 
sold to the Government, and heavy penalties attach even to the 
private possession of raw gold. But as '' ilHcit diamond-buying " 
exists at Kimberley, so illicit gold-buying flourishes at Irkutsk, 
and the Chinese merchants are the offenders. They hang a few 
furs outside a shop, or put a few chests of tea in the window, 
but this is merely a blind, for they make big profits by buying 
gold-dust, in quantities from a pinch to a pocketful, and smug- 
gling it across the frontier into China, where there has long been 
a great market for it at Blagovyeshchensk. The mines pay a 
small rent to the Government, and a varying percentage upon 
their output. Ordinary mines pay three per cent., more pro- 
ductive ones ten per cent., while those situated upon the Em- 
peror's private property pay as much as fifteen per cent. In 
leather bags containing about a poud each (36 lb.), the dust 
is sent by mail, the post undertaking the insurance of each bag 
for about 14,000 roubles. At the laboratory it is weighed, 
mixed with borax, and melted in crucibles (Morgan's, one of 
the few things of British make I saw in Siberia), the ingots 
assayed and weighed, and an '' assignat " for the value at 
Government rates, less the tax, a charge for laboratory fees, 
the cost of transmission to St. Petersburg, and a certain small 
margin, given to the owner. This " assignat " can be cashed im- 
mediately, or can be used as a bank-note. When a large quantity 
has accumulated, it is sent in a special wagon, under an armed 
guard to St. Petersburg, and when the Irkutsk weights and as- 
says have been verified, the margin is paid to the owner. The 
strong-room contained tier upon tier of bright ingots, weighing 
from a few pounds to more than I could lift. This treasure, it 
seemed to me, was very insufficiently guarded, and when I re- 



SIBERIAN CIVILISATION 



151 



marked upon this to the Director, he told me that for a good 
many years a force of Cossacks kept watch every night, but since 
they once stole the whole contents of the strong-room a couple 
of civilian guards have been employed. 

The laboratory at Irkutsk was built in 1870, and since that 
time it has received a total amount of 1,173,456 lb. avoirdupois 
of gold, or, I suppose, considerably over £60,000,000. There are 
three such laboratories in Russia, the others being at Tomsk for 




The Cathedral, Irkutsk. 

Central Siberia, and Ekaterinburg for the Ural district. In 1896 
Russia produced 10^ per cent, of the gold of the world. Up to 
the present year, from 1754, when she began to find gold, she 
cannot have taken much less than £250,000,000 from her own 
soil. The production of gold, however, is decreasing in Russia, 
and in Siberia the richer mines are giving smaller returns. Against 
this must be set the discovery of valuable gold-fields farther 
north; the wilHngness of the Tsar to lease to private companies 
some of his own verv valuable mines that have hitherto been verv 



152 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



inadequately worked; and the fact that the science of gold-ex- 
traction has made such progress of late that the mines supposed 
to be worked out by the first-comers many years ago, can now 
be made to yield a handsome profit again. The chief difficulty 

in Siberian gold-mining is 
labour. There is no skilled 
personnel to be had, and 
the conditions of life at 
points remote from civili- 
sation are so disagreeable 
that labourers often leave 
as soon as they have 
amassed a small sum. I 
may add here my belief 
that Russia has secured in 
Mongolia a tract of ex- 
tremely rich auriferous ter- 
ritory, but this is jealously 
held by a group of Peters- 
burg capitalists, under of- 
ficial protection, and the 
foreign investor is not 
likely to secure an inch of 
it. But for the disturb- 
ances in China I believe 
that these gold - fields 
would have been sensa- 
tionally heard of before 
now. 

Irkutsk is, of course, 
typical only of the civilisation of Siberia in the towns. The 
little settlements tell a different tale. Many of them are doing 
well enough as regards agriculture, but the extreme loneli- 
ness of the life, and the length of the winter, are producing 




Poor Siberian Peasant. 



SIBERIAN CIVILISATION 



^53 



a peculiar Siberian type of people — silent, morose, inexpres- 
sibly sad. Among the lowest classes, too, these conditions, 
with the presence of so large a proportion of criminals, inevit- 
ably breed their own series of crimes. The future of Siberia, 
however, obviously depends upon the success or failure of 
the Trans-Siberian Railway, and this is a question asked with 
great earnestness in Russia and of almost equal interest else- 
where. Will it pay? Will this gigantic enterprise be a suc- 
cess — financial, commercial, strategic? Russians themselves are 
by no means unanimous in reply. There are those who declare 
that it will not only give Russia the ultimate mastery of Asia, but 
that it will also pay a handsome dividend. On the other hand, I 
have heard it called a white elephant, a huge humbug and a finan- 
cial millstone. I may admit that I approached the railway with 
many prejudices against it. Some years ago I studied its begin- 
ning in Vladivostok; I have since been over the whole of the 
line that is open, and as far as Lake Baikal on the uncompleted 
section; and I had many conversations with engineers and of- 
ficials closely connected with all parts of it. I have therefore 
some grounds for an opinion, and I have certainly come to the 
conclusion that the enterprise is of vast promise to Russia, and 
of equal significance to Europe, and to Great Britain most of all. 
As regards the financial prospects of this gigantic railway 
any opinion as yet must, of course, be of the nature of a guess. 
It is fairly obvious that through passenger traffic will not pay at 
the very low rates now charged, while if the rates are raised to 
a paying standard they would be prohibitive to most passengers. 
Neither can through goods traffic be profitable, as few classes of 
merchandise, except tea, and perhaps silk, could support the cost 
of upwards of 5,000 miles of railway transport, in competition 
with an alternative, if much longer, sea route. It is the enlight- 
ened policy of the railway authorities, moreover, to charge as 
little for goods proportionately as for passengers. For example, 
bar steel is carried from the Gulf of Finland to Krasnoyarsk, in 



154 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

Siberia, say, 3,300 miles, at the charge of about £3 per ton. This 
figure was given to me by an EngHsh merchant in Krasnoyarsk. 
Machinery between the same points costs £10 per ton. Such 
rates make for the development of the country, but not for the 
dividends of the railway.* 

When we look at local traffic, however, a very different pict- 
ure presents itself. Already the demand for transport far ex- 
ceeds the supply. Acres of sacks of wheat he piled up, waiting 
for the railway to take them away. Agriculture here is still in 
its infancy, yet in 1898, the latest statistical year, Siberia pro- 
duced 1,000,000 tons of wheat, 730,000 tons of oats, 2,500,000 
tons of grain of all kinds, and 325,000 tons of potatoes. Already 
last year 2,500 American agricultural implements were sold in 
Siberia — more to the cultivated acre than in Russia; McCor- 
mick's posters are in every village, and Deering machines have 
a strong foothold; in Tomsk there is a central depot where four- 
teen agricultural implement makers are represented. British 
firms, unfortunately, are conspicuous by their absence. I travelled 
for a time with the able and experienced representative of an 
American firm of agricultural machine manufacturers, who was 
delighted, and with good reason, at his prospects in Siberia. 
If the microbic fertihsation of land becomes a success, its influ- 

* An attempt is announced to establish a connection between the Russian and 
United States railways, via Bering Strait. A company called the Trans-Alaskan Rail- 
way Co. is stated to have been incorporated at Seattle, Washington State, with 
a capital of $5CT,ooa,ooo, its avowed object being the construction of a line through 
Alaska to some point near Cape Prince of Wales. Mr. Harry de Windt, the well- 
known traveller, who nearly lost his life on a similar previous journey, is said to be 
planning, with the assistance of the Russian and American Governments, to start from 
Irkutsk, in December, 1901, for Yakutsk, 1,800 miles by sleigh; thence to Nijni 
Kolymsk, the most remote Russian settlement, where the population is chiefly com- 
posed of political exiles, another 1,600 miles by reindeer teams; and thence to the 
shore of Bering Strait, which is only about 36 miles wide at its narrowest point, and 
which he will cross either on the ice or in an American revenue cutter, returning to 
civilisation by the Yukon or Mackenzie River. Such a railway enterprise appears 
wholly chimerical, and it is incredible that the Russian Government should seriously 
contemplate it while so many more promising parts of Russia are in great need of 
railway facilities. 



SIBERIAN CIVILISATION 



^5S 



ence upon Siberian agriculture, where chemical manures are out 
of the question, will be incalculable. There is a new world of 
agricultural and mineral wealth waiting beyond the Baikal. A 
new railway, to con- 
nect the Trans-Sibe- I 
rian with the Trans- 
Caspian, will be built 
before many years 
elapse, bringing new 
supplies, creating 
new demands, and 
providing a new safe- 
guard against famine. 
The gold output of Si- 
beria, of which I have 
already given the 
striking figures, will 
be largely increased 
when the present min- 
ing laws are modified, 
and the mines thrown 
open to the improved 
methods and ampler 
capital of the West — 
a state of things which 
Russia is ready to wel- 
come. At a place 
called Ekibas-tuz, near 
Pavlodar, to the south 
of Omsk, and only 
sixty-six miles from the great Irtysh River — to which a line of 
railway was finished two years ago, and three Baldwin locomo- 
tives sent — are coal deposits which an English engineer declared 
to me to be the largest in the world, a seam running for miles of 






Prosperous Siberian Peasant. 



156 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

the almost incredible thickness of three hundred feet. Vast quan- 
tities of coke will be produced here, shipped down the Irtysh to 
Tiumen, and thence transported to the Urals for the iron works 
— a supply the importance of which will be appreciated by those 
who know anything about the iron industry. Near this are very 
rich copper mines, and it is certain that minerals will be discovered 
in other parts. The transportation of convicts to Siberia will 
shortly cease, and last year 223,981 emigrants of both sexes 
crossed the Urals, making a total of close upon 1,000,000 since 

1893- 

I have perhaps now said enough to justify in some degree my 
own belief that the development of Siberia is destined to be a 
handsome reward for the efforts and expenditure so lavishly 
devoted to it. 



CHAPTER X 
THE PRISON OF IRKUTSK 

FROM gold, which H. E. General Goremykin, Governor- 
General of the Irkutsk Government — whom I must not 
forget to thank for all the facilities he afiforded me — calls '' the 
enemy of Siberia," it is a natural step to crime, and of course I 
spent some time at the famous prison of Irkutsk. It is a great, 
square, whitewashed brick building, surrounding a courtyard, 
with a number of smaller wooden buildings adjacent, the whole 
enclosed, except on the front, by an enormous wooden palisade 
of logs, twenty feet high, sharpened at the end. I went into 
every part of the prison that I could see, including the hospital, 
the workshops, the laundry, and the kitchens, and visited every 
one of the large rooms and almost every cell. In all these I saw 
but two things to find fault with — the practice of herding to- 
gether criminals of all ages, tried and untried, and the long time, 
in some cases amounting to two years, which many of the prison- 
ers spend there before their cases are finally judged. This latter 
evil is caused partly by the great difficulty of collecting evidence 
from many parts of Siberia, but chiefly because the central 
authorities do not supply magistrates enough to cope with the 
numbers of those arrested. An additional difficulty is the 
variety of languages spoken by the criminals themselves : three 
times during my visit was the governor, who accompanied me 
most of the time, obliged to send to another part of the prison 
for a prisoner to interpret a request made to him as we passed. 
The prison is supposed to hold only 700 criminals, but it 
contained 1,024 men on the day of my visit, 12 women, and 10 

157 



158 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

children accompanying their mothers. Of these no fewer than 
621 were awaiting trial, 138 were condemned for definite periods 
not exceeding three years, which they will serve in this prison, 
and 286 were " in transit," mostly either to the great convict 
prison of Alexandrofsk, forty-six miles from Irkutsk, or to the 
island of Sakhalin. The convicts condemned to long periods or 
to Sakhalin had half the head shaved, as shown in the group pho- 
tographed on p. 160, and a number of the worst characters were 
in chains. The majority of the prisoners were there for theft, 
and robbery with violence; a number for unnatural ofifences, and 
several, in solitary confinement, for using forged passports, or 
two, for instance, who had exchanged identities and passports — 
a serious offence in Russian eyes. Two other men I saw sepa- 
rately confined were unidentified prisoners, who had no pass- 
ports, and refused to say who they were, or where they came 
from, the natural inference being that they had something seri- 
ous to hide. The cells were large, clean, and fairly light, and all 
the prisoners were dressed in loose coats and trousers of grey 
felt, with apparently such underclothing as they happened to 
possess. Those not separately confined were in long rooms, 
lighted by a row of small windows high in the walls, entered by 
one heavy door, and having down the middle a sort of enor- 
mous plank bed, sloping from the middle down to each side. 
Upon this they slept in two rows at night, and sat during the 
day, for the space between the end of the boards and the wall 
was only just big enough to hold them all when standing up to 
receive an official visit. Four such wards did I enter, seeing per- 
haps six hundred prisoners of all ages, from youths to very 
old men, of all the nationalities which Russia contains, and 
charged with all the crimes in the code. Every one of these 
prisoners was awaiting trial, and I was told that many of them 
would be there as long as two years. Certain considerations, 
however, may modify our disapproval somewhat. In the first 
place, these men are assuredly better clothed and housed and 



THE PRISON OF IRKUTSK 159 

fed than they would otherwise be — indeed, at the approach of 
winter, a large number deliberately get themselves arrested. In 
the second place, the proportion of criminals in the whole popu- 
lation of Siberia is so very large, and the police are so few in 
number, and so lax, that the chances are much stronger against 
an innocent man being arrested than in more civilised regions. 
Thirdly, it was impossible to pass about among these men, look- 
ing carefully into their faces, and not to feel that it was better for 
Siberia that most of them should be where they were. When 
the door of one of the large rooms was thrown open and I was 
invited to step in among two hundred of them, I confess at first 
I hesitated. There were only four cf lis — the governor, the head- 
warder, the doorkeeper of the room, and myself, with nobody 
else even within hail, while in one case there were but two doors 
between them and the street, and an old man keeping watch. 
In an English prison those men would have been outside in a 
couple of minutes. Never has it been my lot, though I have 
visited prisons, civilised and uncivilised, in many parts of the 
world, to see human nature at such a low ebb, and the faces 
of these men, from wild beast to vacant idiot, haunted me for 
days. Guilty or innocent of any particular crime, they could 
hardly be other, with few exceptions, than a curse to society. 
From this point of view Russian criminology has a task unknown 
in countries where civilisation has reached a higher average de- 
velopment. 

The convicts, curiously enough — that is, men condemned to 
considerable terms of hard labour before being set free as exiles, 
forbidden to leave the district to which they are assigned — were 
on the whole of a rather better type, although they were disfig- 
ured by having half of the head shaved. Each man had a rough 
parcel of his personal belongings, and they were all strangely 
cheerful, considering their destination. Nothing, however, 
strikes an English visitor, who has seen the rigid military dis- 
cipline of our own prisons, so much as the good feeling, not to 



i6o 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



say familiarity, which prevails between the officials and the pris- 
oners. The Inspector-General of the Prison, M. Sipiagin, who 
accompanied me, seemed to regard his charges rather as chil- 
dren than as criminals, and they behaved to him with the con- 
fidence, never wanting in respect, of school-boys toward a 
master. He never failed to remove his military cap, and say 
*' Zdrasti! " (Good health!) when he entered a ward, and a simul- 




Inside the Prison, Irkutsk. 

A group of convicts to be "distributed." 

taneous cry returned his greeting. As we walked up and down, 
man after man stepped up to the inspector, asked him questions 
about themselves or their sentences without the least trace of 
fear or embarrassment, and even took him literally by the but- 
ton-hole and turned him aside from us when they wished to make 
some private remark to him. One man going to Sakhalin pro- 
duced a paper showing that he had a small sum of money to his 
credit in a prison in Moscow, and the particulars were noted 



THE PRISON OF IRKUTSK i6i 

down and orders given that this was to be sent after him. An- 
other wished the doctor to examine him again before he started 
for Sakhalin; the Inspector spoke a word to his orderly, and 
later in the day I saw this man sitting at the hospital door await- 
ing his turn. Those who think that everything in the Russian 
prison system is savagery may say that all this was rehearsed for 
my benefit, but I am not a child in such matters, and I say that 
it was impossible to accompany M. Sipiagin on this tour of 
inspection and not to be struck by the entire absence of terror- 
ism in any form. The Russian convict system has its terrible 
side, of which I am now more than ever aware, but there are 
few signs of it in a prison like that of Irkutsk. To find this 
nowadays one must look farther north and east. 

There was no political prisoner there at the time; at least, 
I was assured that this was the case, and later I saw the official 
report for the day, in which no such prisoner figured. I saw a 
number of '' politicals " elsewhere at various times, but they were 
all earning a good living as clerks and bookkeepers. Of course 
I did not get as far as the terrible little town of Kolymsk, a 
thousand versts north of Irkutsk, where the worst political of- 
fenders are exiled to a living death. But from all I saw I was 
not surprised to learn that at the beginning of each winter an 
influx of minor offenders takes place into prison, where they 
get warm quarters, plenty of wholesome food, and no work. And 
as I have said, I saw clearly that the Russian authorities have to 
deal with a stratum of population far below any that exists with 
us — a brutish, hopeless, irreclaimable mass of human animals. 

A few figures will show to what an extent the human refuse 
of European Russia has been emptied into Siberia. In 1898 — 
the latest statistics available — 7,906 men and 314 women were 
exiled to Siberia. These were voluntarily followed into exile 
by 1,683 men and 3,275 women. The first-named exiles were 
divided into classes as follows: 1,281 men and 68 women con- 
demned to hard labour; 128 men and 3 women sentenced to 



i62 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

banishment; 52 men and 158 women simply deported; and 3,848 
men and 3 women, peasants whom their village communes had 
refused to receive back after condemnation and punishment for 
various offences. The convict headquarters is the island of Sak- 
halin, in the China Sea, which very few foreigners have ever vis- 
ited. It is crowded now and can take no more, and its condition 
is said by Russians themselves to be very bad. Indeed its pris- 
ons, which will not hold half the convicts, are admitted in the 
ofBcial report itself to be " dans un etat de vetuste tres 
avancee." 

It is evident to anybody who studies the state of Siberia 
that this wonderful country can never enjoy its due develop- 
ment until the whole system of convict transportation is done 
away with. Not a week passes without a murder in every Si- 
berian town. Two emigrants had been killed in the Siberian train 
shortly before my visit. The head of one force of free labourers 
upon railway works was in Siberia for an outrage upon a child; 
the boss of another was a murderer. The porter at my hotel 
in Irkutsk was a murderer from the Caucasus. Theoretically, 
when bad characters are deported they are forbidden to leave 
the district to which they are assigned; practically, they leave 
as soon as it suits them, and their first object is to kill some 
peasant for his clothes and passport. Indeed, if they did not 
move away they would starve, for in many cases the authorities 
simply turn them out and leave them to their fate.* The politi- 

* " De fait, la situation du forgat etait, sous maints rapports, mieux assuree que 
celle des condamnes a la deportation simple ou a la relegation. Tandis que le premier, 
en etant astreint au travail, avait souvent son propre menage, certains deportes, aban- 
donnes a la merci du sort, dans un pays presque inhabite, avaient de la peine a 
trouver de I'occupation pour assurer leur existence. On con9oit par consequent I'im- 
portance de la recente loi qui a supprime la deportation, et avec elle ce genre special 
de proletariat vagabond. La prison contemporaine n'est certainement pas I'ideal du 
regime penitentiaire ; mais son effet sera toujours infiniment moins nuisible que celui 
du vagabondage pour ainsi dire force que vient de supprimer la loi susmentionnee. " 
— Report of the Central Prison Administration, reproduced in the Gazette de St. 
P^tersbourgy March i8, 1901. 



THE PRISON OF IRKUTSK 163 

cal exiles have made Siberia what it is, for they have been among 
the most educated and energetic classes in Russia; but the crim- 
inal exiles are a fatal bar to further progress. Siberia will there- 
fore eagerly welcome the good news that the commission ap- 
' pointed by the Tsar to consider the whole question of criminal 
transportation has just reported against the Siberian system, and 
recommended the construction of great convict prisons in Russia. 
The cost of these to the State will be enormously greater than 
that of criminal Siberia, and assuredly the lot of the convict will 
henceforth be harder, but the decision was inevitable if one of 
the richest parts of the Tsar's dominions is to attain its proper 
prosperity. 



THE GREAT 
WATER-WAY 



CHAPTER XI 
"LITTLE MOTHER VOLGA" 

RUSSIA has two great Asiatic railways, each destined to 
play a vast part in her commercial and political future. 
One of them runs, speaking roughly, from St. Petersburg to 
China, the other from the Black Sea (by the Caucasus and the 
Caspian) to India. The commercial objects of the two are dif- 
ferent, but a political aim they have in common: together with 
other lines shortly to be built they form part of the net which 
Russia is throwing over Asia. Having seen the Great Siberian 
Railway, as described in previous chapters, my next object was 
the Trans-Caspian Railway, and the heart of Asia to which it 
goes. But Russia is a country of magnificent distances, and 
practically the whole of it separated me, in the north of Europe, 
from Asia Minor, in the south, with a great mountain chain, 
crossed by no railway, intervening. To make the whole jour- 
ney by rail would have been long, dreary and roundabout, where- 
as if I could get down the Volga, it would be not only a com- 
fortable but a very interesting one. But snow had begun to 
fall in Siberia, and the freezing of the Volga was close at hand. 
Fortune, however, was kind, for on the platform at Samara I 
learned that the last boat of the season was to leave the same 
night. The traveller from Western Europe reaches the Cau- 
casus most pleasantly by steamer from Constantinople to Batum, 
or if he is already in Russia, by steamer from Odessa. It is only 
when you are coming from Siberia that your best route is down 
the Volga to Tsaritsin, and thence by rail to Vladikavkaz. 

Samara had both plague and famine for its neighbours of late, 

164 



"LITTLE MOTHER VOLGA" 165 

but there were no signs of either. It is a typical Russian pro- 
vincial town, defying description. Its houses range from wooden 
hovels to well-built, handsome structures, public offices and busi- 
ness premises. Its principal sight is of course a statue of a Tsar. 
Its best streets are paved and the others are a welter of mud. 
Its chief industry and the source of its prosperity — though this 
has suffered from the succession of bad harvests in the Volga 
provinces, and has still, I fear, to suiter more — could be learned 
from a glance round the store of Messrs. Koenitzer & Co., 
where every kind of agricultural tool and machine was displayed. 
Incidentally I have to thank this most courteous German firm 
for very timely assistance, and a word about this may be of use 
to future travellers in provincial Russia. 

My letters had been addressed to the Samara branch of the 
Volga-Kama Bank, and I had a personal letter of introduction 
to them from a Moscow banker, besides my official letter of 
recommendation from the Minister of Finance himself. Under 
these circumstances, when I approached the manager of the bank 
with London and Westminster circular notes, I imagined that cash 
would be forthcoming. It was a vain hope. The manager of 
the principal bank of this important town of 100,000 people, sit- 
uated at the focus of traffic where the greatest railway in Russia 
crosses the greatest river, looked at my financial documents with 
amiable curiosity, as if they had been a Papal Bull or a portrait 
of the Emperor of China. As for advancing money upon such 
things, the very idea raised obvious and painful suspicions in 
his mind. After long discussion I inquired if he could suggest 
any means whereby the solvency of the London and Westminster 
Bank could be made manifest in Samara. He thought that if 
he telegraphed to Moscow, and Moscow telegraphed to St. 
Petersburg, and St. Petersburg telegraphed to London, the deed 
might ultimately be done. How long would this take? Per- 
haps a week. I left, with the intention of seeking the nearest 
pawnshop, when the firm of Koenitzer & Co. arose like a star 



i66 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

in my financial night, and, having the usual knowledge of the 
methods of credit and exchange common to civilised countries, 
was kind enough to give me in two minutes all the money I 
wanted. Let this be the record of my thanks, and a warning 
to other travellers in provincial Russian towns where the con- 
stellation of Koenitzer may not be in the ascendant, to carry 
their cash in a belt, as one does in Korea, for instance. 

At the foot of a steep hill, at the end of a broad street, the 
great grey Volga flows past Samara. A paddle-steamer, look- 




The Volga. 

ing like a row of two-storey houses, lay at a wharf piled high 
with goods — sacks of corn and flour, thousands of wooden cases, 
cart-wheels, the kind of dug-out canoes in which linen is washed 
in Russia, in fact, a miscellaneous mountain of merchandise, all 
asking urgently to be taken south before the frost blocked the 
long waterway. And a shouting, pushing, perspiring mass of 
peasant humanity, with its belongings, personal and professional, 
in innumerable great bundles. We were ofT before the hour 
struck, and an excellent meal and a large and verminous cabin 



"LITTLE MOTHER VOLGA 



167 



awaited me upon the bosom of what geographers know as the 
biggest river in Europe, and what Russians affectionately call 
'' little Mother Volga." 

This gigantic waterway, 2,300 miles long, over eleven miles 
wide in the spring at Nijni Novgorod, draining a country three 
times the size of France, with a delta of seventy-two miles, is a 
disappointment as regards scenery. The Rhine, the Hudson, 
the Yang-tsze and the Thames all surpass it in their different 




A Timber Barge on the Volga. 



aspects. Its left bank is an unbroken fertile plain, edged with 
willows and dwarf oaks, and when the sandbanks, bordered with 
a green strip, come down to the river, one could think one's self 
on the Nile. The right bank is an uninterrupted cliff, worn steep 
by the river in geologic time. Every now and then, when its 
angle is acuter, a little village cHngs to it, the mud-coloured 
houses rising one above another on the mud-coloured slope. 
The important town of Saratof extends for a mile or more, and 
very quaint is the view of it from the steamer. Its centre is a 



i68 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

mass of red-brick buildings, and on each flank is a long suburb 
of wooden houses, tailing out at last to a fringe of poverty. High 
white churches with green roofs are dotted over the city, and 
all the wide main streets fall precipitously to the water's edge 
at a right angle, looking at a distance more like streams than 
roads. 

The river is covered with busy life. Tugs are slowly hauling 
whole fleets of barges upstream, some loaded high above the 
water, some flat-decked and black — these are filled with petro- 
leum from Baku. Most picturesque are the immense barges of 
timber drifting down from the north; these are as big and as 
high as a house, and on the top of them are the solidly built 
cabins in which their crews live during the long quiet voy- 
age. Every few hours we meet another steamer like ourselves, 
its one scarlet boat slung at a slant, nose upwards, at the 
stern. 

Near Saratof we made fast to a huge oil barge, and I think 
this was the most interesting incident of the Volga. No fuel 
but oil is used upon the river or near it, and the consumption 
is increasing so fast that, although the supply is increasing also, 
the price is steadily rising. It is not, of course, petroleum or 
kerosene as we know it, but the heavy residue left after these Hght 
oils are refined. The residue, for its fuel value, is worth more 
than the illuminating oils, and indeed I was told that the whole 
industry exists practically to produce this residue. As soon as 
we were made fast, a long wooden sluice was run aboard, one 
end of which was under the canvas pipe leading from a huge 
tank on the deck of the barge, and the other end over the open- 
ing of our own oil cisterns amidships. The word was given, 
and instantly a thick, dark green, almost inodorous stream rushed 
down the sluice. In less than an hour we had taken on board 
some forty tons, enough for four days and nights of consecutive 
steaming. 

When we cast off again I went down to the stokehole to 



"LITTLE MOTHER VOLGA" 169 

see what became of the oil. There were four large cylindrical 
boilers, each with apparently an ordinary firebox but without 
any grate-bars. In each furnace door was an opening a few 
inches wide, and two pipes, about an inch and a half in diameter, 
descended from the roof and coalescing in a joint with two taps, 
like that which unites the oxygen and hydrogen cylinders of 
a magic lantern, projected a little way into the firebox. The 
principle is precisely that of the familiar ozoniser or scent-spray, 
the oil coming into contact with a jet of steam and being driven 
into the furnace in the shape of a blast of petroleum vapour, 
which burns fiercely with a deafening roar. The heat is intense, 
the inside of the furnace being red-hot all round, but it is aston- 
ishing to see a perfectly empty firebox, with all the boiler-tubes 
in full sight, and not a cinder nor a trace of smoke. The stoke- 
hole is as clean as any other part of the vessel, and the two 
stokers stand quietly, each before a pair of boilers, holding a little 
wooden mallet in his hand. This is to tap the steam and oil 
cocks, as they are too hot to touch. A few taps, and one of 
the boiler fires is extinguished. A few more taps and a torch 
thrust for a second through the opening and it is alight again. 
Half a dozen taps and one furnace is burning with a blaze and 
a heat and a roar positively alarming. The contrast between 
this simplicity and cleanliness and the banging, the dirt, the sweat 
and the cinder-shifting of an ordinary stokehole is extraordi- 
nary. When I went on deck there was not even a suggestion of 
smoke from the one broad low funnel, and the captain told me 
that he could get up steam from cold water in a little over half 
an hour. 

The combination of perfect river transport, connected by 
canals with St. Petersburg and Moscow, and the abundance of 
such a convenient and cheap fuel, is obviously destined to pro- 
mote manufactures of all kinds in the Volga towns. At Saratof 
it was easy to see that a number of the factories were new, while 
at Tsaritsin a French company is setting up ironworks on a 



I70 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

great scale. It is safe to prophesy that many other similar enter- 
prises will take shape hereabouts in years to come.* 

At Tsaritsin I left the steamer after three days on board, 
and next day took train for Vladikavkaz, another three days' 
travel. It is a long and monotonous railway journey across a 
plain with no elevation on it bigger than your hat, green in spring 
and coming gradually under cultivation — though you never cease 
to wonder how the little scattered villages can hold inhabitants 
enough to till it — and brown as a nut after the summer heats. 
After a time you cease even to look out of the carriage-window, 
and doze or read through the long hours, while the train itself 
seems to go to sleep, so slowly does it move. 

Distances look insignificant upon the small scale map of Rus- 
sia, but, in fact, they ai'e very great, and nearly a week had 
elapsed since I left the railway in the north, on my return from 
Siberia, before I came in sight of the great range. But at last 
I looked up and saw suddenly a startling prospect — nothing 
less than an army of dazzling snow-white mountains, marching, 
as it were, in close order over the mud-coloured plain. A few 
hours later we were in Vladikavkaz, whose name means the Mas- 
tery of the Caucasus, just as Vladivostok means the Mastery of 
the East, though, like Gordon's '' ever-victorious army," such 
appellations convey an aspiration rather than a description. 
Here the plain and the monotony and the West come to an end, 
and the mountains and the wonderland and the East begin. 

Like all such Russian towns it has a cosmopolitan centre of 

* This year the navigation of the Volga has been attended with very great diffi- 
culty, arising partly from the failure of the light-buoys, resulting in many barges run- 
ning aground and blocking the channel, and mor€ from an extraordinary lowness of 
water. It is said that no less than 15,000,000 pouds of petroleum and petroleum 
residue are stranded in barges between Astrakhan and Saratof, while 40,000,000 
pouds are lying at Astrakhan, and will probably have to be stored there during the 
winter. The lack of this enormous quantity of material for light and fuel will 
evidently cause the most serious embarrassment. The dredging of a deep navigable 
channel in the Volga is a matter which demands the immediate efforts of the govern- 
ment on a much larger scale than that at present pursued. Probably the authorities 
would welcome foreign ceoperation in this great undertaking. 



"LITTLE MOTHER VOLGA" 171 

a more or less pretentious kind — the hotel, and an institution 
or two, any of which buildings might be found enclosing the 
smug bourgeoisie of the French provinces, or persuading Ferdi- 
nand of Bulgaria that he was still in his Austrian home. After 
this kernel, the streets gain in dirt, in colour, in that frank in- 
decency of procedure which marks Oriental life, and the first 
houses you pass as you enter the town, and the last as you leave 
it, are square, crumbling wooden caves with all the messy food- 
products or the garish cottons hanging in them that characterise 
the customs of Eastern peoples. 

It is a cold and bright October day, and the great blue moun- 
tains that appear at every southern street-end of Vladikavkaz 
are powdered with snow. I have not seen mountains trust them- 
selves so near a plain before. They seem a company of noble 
travellers, these huge peaks, always at the same point of arrival, 
walking into the town and toward the plain. The snow upon 
them is not more than the generous sugaring upon a birthday- 
cake, and their deep fissures keep an indigo gloom. They dis- 
dain foot-hills and approaches and slopes and shoulders, and 
only a green grass ridge seeded thickly with sheep, and a 
wooded hill or two, russet and orange at this autumn moment, 
lie between them and the steppe. My road leads over them, 
8,000 feet high, by the most famous mountain-highway of the 
world. 



THE CAUCASUS 



CHAPTER XII 
THE FROSTY CAUCASUS 

FROM the Oxus to the Arctic Circle, and from Kars to 
Kamchatka, the Tsar rules many strange peoples and 
countries, but the Caucasus is strangest of all. Indeed, anyone 
who averred that the Caucasus is the most interesting land of 
the world would be able to back his opinion with good reasons. 
The range is a wall across the narrow isthmus which joins Europe 
and Asia, and the Gorge of Dariel is the door in this wall through 
which have come almost all the migrating peoples between East 
and West since men began to move at all. From many of these' 
migrations stragglers remained, some in one valley, some in an- 
other, and their new homes lent themselves so well to defence 
against all after-comers that the original settlers were able to 
increase and multiply and keep their race intact. Hence the Cau- 
casus contains to-day the direct and not greatly changed de- 
scendants of peoples otherwise lost in the mists of remote an- 
tiquity. It is, in the words of Mr. Douglas Freshfield, the first 
explorer and climber of the mountains, '' an ethnological museum 
where the invaders of Europe, as they travelled westward to be 
manufactured into nations, left behind samples of themselves in 
their raw condition." The Germans, destroyers of sacred and 
profane legend, do not accept this theory, and Professor Virchow 
declares that it is disproved by the fact that the Caucasus could 
not have been a highway when the ice-fields came down lower 
than they do now, and that the languages of the Caucasus are 
not related to languages elsewhere, as would have been the case 

if the speakers of them were remnants of greater nations that 

172 



THE FROSTY CAUCASUS 



173 



had passed on. But the theory of human samples is so attrac- 
tive, and the races of the Caucasus are so original and peculiar, 
that for my part I share on this occasion the willingness of the 
American humorist to " know some things that are not so." At 
least the sceptical Germans may leave us the classic belief that 
^^Casbek was the scene of the martyrdom of Prometheus, and 

the Christian legend 

that Abraham's tent 

and Christ's cradle are • 

still to be found hidden 

on its slopes. The 

Caucasus, in fact, was 

destined by nature to 

be the home of myth, 

for in ancient times it 

was the barrier beyond 

which no man could 

go, and therefore the 

gate of the land which 

man populated with 

the offspring of his 

dreams — the land '' of 

Gog and Magog, of 

gold-guarding Griffins, 

one-eyed Arimaspians, 

and Amazons — of all the fabulous creatures which pass slowly 

out of the atlases of the learned into the picture-books of the 

nursery." 

History is so romantic, however, in the Caucasus, that myth 
can be dispensed with. It tells us how Alexander the Great 
conquered Georgia; how the legions of Pompey, and, long after- 
ward, those of Justinian, fought at the mouth of the Dariel Pass, 
but that neither soldier nor merchant ever passed up from the 
south, while the Scythian barbarians to the north were equally 




^~'P^9T^^^:i^7^^ 



Caucasian Types — Tatars. 



174 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

unable to push their way down. The history of the people who 
held the Pass begins in the third century B.C., with King Phar- 
navaz, and goes on, in an unbroken and often bloody story, down 
1,300 years till the swords of the Crusaders had so weakened 
the infidel hordes that King David II. (1089), whose descent 
from the Psalmist is commemorated by the harp and the sling 
in the arms of Georgia, drove out the Turks and laid the founda- 
tions of order and civilisation upon which, a hundred years later, 
Queen Tamara of immortal memory built up the Augustan age 
of her country. If half that is told of this lady be true, she was 
one of the most remarkable women that ever filled a throne or 
broke a heart. So beautiful that Shahs and Sultans competed 
for her hand; so gifted with poesy that she celebrated her glori- 
ous victories in ever-memorable verse; so humble that she earned 
her own living every day; so pious that she set aside for the 
Virgin a portion of all her spoils of war; so brave that she de- 
fied a Persian threat, backed by 800,000 warriors, she spread the 
fame and the fear of Georgia through all the accessible world. 
But the flowers had not bloomed often on her grave ere that in- 
vincible scourge of Asia, Genghiz Khan, came to Georgia, and 
her son went down before his victory-glutted Mongols, while 
her daughter's beauty, like her own before, brought rejected 
suitors seeking revenge at the head of their armies. Georgia 
became the cockpit where the rival Mohammedan sects of Persia 
and Turkey fought out their everlasting quarrel; it was divided 
by its own rulers, and for many a generation its story is of pil- 
lage and poison and murder and the putting out of eyes. Then 
came Irakli the Great, the contemporary of Frederick the Great, 
who said of him, " Moi en Europe, et en Asie V invincible Hercule, 
roi de Georgie^ * Finally, when Georgia was helpless at the feet 
of Persia, came Russia, nominally mistress of Georgia in 1801. 
She had to defeat both Persia and Turkey before her conquest 
was consolidated, and to suppress many a rising of her new sub- 

* Wardrop. 



THE FROSTY CAUCASUS 



175 



jects. The latest of these was the revolution led by the prophet- 
patriot Shamyl, who raised the entire Caucasus against her and 
held her whole might at bay for sixteen years, destroying sev- 
eral Russian armies, until he was hopelessly surrounded in the 
highland fastness of Gunib in 1859 ^^^ surrendered. In the pub- 
lic gallery at Tiflis 
there is a huge 
painting represent- 
ing Shamyl with 
head thrown back 
and scarlet beard, 
brought before the 
Russian comman- 
der, seated under a 
tree amid his staff. 
As I looked at it a 
Georgian peasant, 
who of course 
could not read the 
inscription below, 
timidly approached 
me and asked, " If 
you please, is that 
Shamyl?" "It 
is," I replied, and 
his deep, long- 
drawn "Ah" 
showed how poig- 
nant the memory 
of this lost leader is yet. And when I left the gallery half an 
hour later he was still gazing upon the man with whose fall 
all the hopes of his people, with their history of 2,000 years, 
fell finally too. 

But the interest of the Caucasus is by no means confined to 




Caucasian Types — a Tekkin Family. 



176 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

its romantic history, nor even to its ethnological variety also— 
its once gallant Georgians, who so long championed the Cross 
against the Crescent, its wild Lesghian highlanders of Daghes- 
tan, its savage Suanetians, but lately tamed, its Ossets, the arm- 
makers, '' gentlemen of the mountains," its Abkhasians, who 
migrated to Turkey en masse rather than remain under Russian 
rule, its vain and handsome Circassians, its lazy Mingrelians of 
the fever-haunted coast, and all the other races whose names sug- 
gest a philologist's nightmare — Imerian, Rachan, Gurian, Lech- 
gum, Laz, Pshav, Khevsur, Ubych, Shapsuch, Dshiget, Ingush, 
Galgai, Kist, Tush, Karabulak, Kazi-Kumyksh! Its mountain 
scenery is unparalleled for grandeur except by the Himalayas, 
and offers many a virgin peak to the adventurous Alpinist. The 
sportsman may find ibex and stag and boar and wild bull, and 
game-birds to satiety, for, in contrast with other places, game 
is becoming more abundant because of the high price of licenses 
- — so abundant, indeed, that according to the Tiflis Listok, bears 
and wolves rob the shepherd before his eyes, and wild boars come 
to the fields in droves. It is a botanist's paradise: between the 
arid plain and the snows is a belt where men on horseback can 
play at hide-and-seek amid the flowers, '' survivals of the giant 
flora of past ages." It contains the other great oil-fields of the 
world, and its mineral wealth, already great, only awaits de- 
velopment to astonish an age little apt to enthusiasm over the 
treasures it drags from their hiding-places in the earth. Finally, 
to the student of politics its very atmosphere reeks with interest, 
since some day the vast armies of Russia will pour through it 
again to another death-grip with the Turk — the great fortress 
of Kars is fortified only on the south side — and who knows what 
scenes it may witness if Britain and Russia draw the sword, and 
the masses of Moscovy march singing across it, to the Caspian, 
to find their graves on the banks of the Indus? 

Yet this little land, in spite of its surpassing interest from 
every point of view, remains comparatively unknown. It can 



THE FROSTY CAUCASUS 



177 



be reached almost in luxury, and on its main routes the most 
delicate dame need suffer no undue discomfort. In the whole 
of Russia there is not a hotel so clean and pleasant as the Hotel 
de Londres at Tiflis. I cannot think why the enterprising and 
well-to-do tourist, who has exhausted Europe, does not turn 




^ykv^ 



Caucasian Types— the Real Circassian. 



lyS ALL THE RUSSIAS 

his steps thither. Perhaps these pages may induce him to do 
so. And as Mr. Freshfield, who justly claims that he and his 
companions '' took the first step toward converting the prison 
of Prometheus into a new playground for his descendants," says 
that he cannot enforce his recommendation better than by echo- 
ing the exhortation of Mr. Clinton Dent, so, assuredly, neither 
can I. " If you worship the mountains for their own sake; if 
you like to stand face to face with nature, where she mingles 
the fantastic and the sublime with the sylvan and the idyllic — 
snows, crags and mists, flowers and forests — in perfect harmony; 
where she enhances the effect of her pictures by the most start- 
ling contrasts, and enlivens their foregrounds with some of the 
most varied and picturesque specimens of the human race — go 
to the Caucasus. If you wish to change, not only your earth 
and sky but your century, to find yourself one week among the 
pastoral folk who once peopled Northern Asia, the next among 
barbarians who have been left stranded while the rest of the 
world has flowed on; if it attracts you to share the bivouac of 
Tauli shepherds, to sit at supper with a feudal chieftain while his 
retainers chant the old ballads of their race by the light of birch- 
bark torches — go to the Caucasus." I would only add, go to 
the Caucasus also if you would visit a city where seventy lan- 
guages are spoken, and where you can step aside from the opera- 
house and the electric tramway and in five minutes be drink- 
ing wine from an ox-skin and talking politics and revolution 
and war with mysterious men of the real old hopeful, all-know- 
ing, all-plotting East, the while you bargain for a turquoise from 
Tehran, or a Turkoman carpet, or a pinch of that perfume of 
strange potency which is one of the very few things that the 
East does not willingly give for Western gold. 



But the traveller in the Caucasus would be unwise to let his 
attention be monopolised by its romance and picturesqueness, 



THE FROSTY CAUCASUS 



179 



to the exclusion of its practical and commercial interests. These, 
however, are hardly inferior to its more dazzling side, and they 
are growing, and destined to grow, in amazing fashion. Nature 
has endowed the country with a climate in which anything will 
flourish, and the soil holds mineral wealth in vast variety and 
infinite quantity. At present Russian official methods seriously 
handicap production, but M. de Witte's influence is gradually 







0^.^^^^,yy'-^ .^ 



u_(ft. 



. . -gfra pBjdiwri 




Datum. 



removing obstructions and hastening procedure. If he lives, and 
no war comes to strain Russian resources, the next ten years 
will see all the world astonished at the commercial development 
of the Caucasus. The progress of the oil industry of Baku every- 
body knows, and I give the astonishing figures in a subsequent 
chapter. The export of manganese ore, an essential of the steel 
industry, the Caucasus furnishing exactly half of the world's 
supply, was 426,179 tons in 1900, from the two ports of Poti 



i8o ALL THE RUSSIAS 

and Batum. As regards other productions the British Consul 
at Batum, Mr. Patrick Stevens, who speaks from intimate knowl- 
edge, says that if the uncertainty that hangs over Russian 
official methods were removed " there can be no shadow of 
doubt that the boundless resources of this country, so richly 
endowed by nature, might be developed very advantageously 
both for the capitalist and the population," for " its mineral 
wealth is practically unlimited, copper, zinc, iron, tin, and many 
other metals being found throughout the region, in most cases 
in exceedingly extensive deposits." Round the shores of the 
Black Sea are several Imperial Estates, known as '' appanages," 
where excellent wine is produced in large quantities, and this 
is an industry which might be greatly extended by experienced 
and skilful wine-growers with capital. The wine of Khaketia 
is already drunk all over Russia. Around Batum are flourish- 
ing tea-plantations, and the two crops already gathered are said 
to have been very satisfactory. Hitherto Chinese tea has alone 
been grown, but on an estate of the Imperial family Indian 
tea has been successfully planted, and further plantations of 
this are now to be made near Sukhum and in Mingrelia. A 
British company has just been formed to develop new oil-fields. 
And one more eloquent fact in conclusion: the railway across 
the Caucasus, from Batum on the Black Sea to Baku on 
the Caspian, six hundred and twenty-one miles in thirty hours, 
showed a net profit of revenue over expenditure last year of 
nearly £1,000,000 — $5,000,000; and yet the rolling-stock is so 
inadequate to the traffic offered that a large amount of freight 
is now going by rail round the mountain range, via Petrofsk and 
Vladikavkaz, to the port of Novorossisk, instead of to Batum. 
At present agriculture alone is languishing in the Caucasus, but 
this Industry has its ups and downs everywhere, and when it is 
less prosperous there is the more labour available for commercial 
enterprise. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE GEORGIAN ROAD 

THE traffic over the great Georgian Military Road, which 
connects Europe and Asia across the Caucasus, is in the 
hands of contractors who work under strict official rules and 
tariff.* You visit the office at Vladikavkaz, inspect a series of 
photographs of all the available types of vehicle, make your 
choice, pay the charge, and receive a ticket which you show en 
route. I selected a carriage in shape something between a small 
victoria and a small barouche. It had a long and heavy pole for 
its size and was built for two horses, but for the Pass we have 
an extra horse hung on at each side by rope traces. All four 
are gray, with the pretty Russian harness of thin straps dotted 
with brass buttons. It does not look strong enough to hold a 
refractory horse for a minute, and even the four single reins the 
driver holds in his hands, though thick and double, are so twisted 
and hardened by weather that they might be expected to snap, 
like all unnourished leather, in a moment of emergency. 

Snugly packed in, well folded in furs and rugs, and our 
lighter belongings tucked about us and tied on wherever there 
is space for them, we rock away through the rugged streets of 
Vladikavkaz, and soon we have passed its most eastern limit 
and are in the country. All mountain ranges have the same be- 
ginnings in the plains — a gentle ascent, rolling foot-hills, a zig- 

* The charge is four kopecks (a penny — 2 cents) per horse per verst, and the dis- 
tance is 201 versts (132 miles). The total cost for a two-seated private carriage works 
out at about £b — say $30 — for the trip. Prince Hilkoff, Minister of Railways, has 
just made the journey in a motor-car, and it is proposed to use these for carrying the 
mails across the Pass. 

181 



i82 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

zag road, white peaks on the horizon drawing ever nearer, a 
dashing, splashing river-keeping company, a rocky descent be- 
side the narrow road, and then of a sudden a chill in the air which 
may be intoxicating to the mountaineer, but causes the plains- 
man to draw his wraps tighter about him. Our horses travel 
splendidly, and we do not yet seem to be mounting sensibly; 
now and then a cream-coloured sheep-dog, in shape a small St. 
Bernard, with black muzzle and cropped black ears, flings him- 
self at the outer horses with a deep and savage bark, but these, 
as we are to learn presently, have brought their troops and 
troops of sheep out of the high mountains for the winter, and 
some of them are still too tired to get up out of the roadway. 

For Fortune gave us a wonderful experience in thus crossing 
the Caucasus. By chance we had hit upon the very day chosen 
l^y the shepherds to bring down their flocks from the summer 
mountain pastures to their winter quarters in the plains — it may 
have been a Saint's Day, sacred by tradition to this change, or 
perhaps the first snows of winter gave the signal. From Vladi- 
kavkaz to the top of the pass, however, we met these flocks in 
such numbers as I had never dreamed of. Shall I be believed 
when I say that during that day we met a hundred thousand 
sheep and goats? I fancy it was much more, and during our 
first day we thought of little else. 

The whole long simple business of sheep-rearing, more ar- 
chaic to-day in its pursuit than the breeding and keeping of any 
other animal, is deeply interesting from many a point of view. 
I am dehghted to add another sheep silhouette, so to speak, to 
memories I have gathered of " the meek-nosed, the passionless 
faces " of sheep in other parts of the world. The Caucasian sheep 
— like every other inhabitant, brute or human, of these moun- 
tains — abounds in character. Unlike other Eastern sheep, it is 
mainly a white beast, with fawn-coloured ears and fawn-coloured 
feet, and a light dash of freckles upon its white nose; but be- 
yond this pretty colouring only the buttocks are remarkable, and 



THE GEORGIAN ROAD 



183 



these because they carry what look Hke superfluous cushions of 
wool, similar in shape, if I am permitted the illustration, to the 
'' bustles " of twenty years ago, but which prove to be lumps 
of fat between w^iich depend their short and modest tails. 
The rams, of which there are numbers, have horns that curve 
in double curls, and though they are relatively small like the 
sheep, they are beautiful and walk with pride among the flock, 
stamping their feet and barking from time to time. 




Vladikavkaz, at the Foot of the Caucasus. 

Deplorably mingled with the sheep are goats — goats of all 
sorts and styles, black, brown, white, and mottled; goats with 
great horns sweeping upward and over their backs, or wide- 
spread to each side, or even malignly twisted one over another. 
Nothing will ever make a goat look a good animal. Even a kid, 
in his moment of prettiest play, is impish as a lamb cannot be. 
Nobody knows why this is. From the first a goat has been used 
as an emblem of sin — though nobody who knows goats can un- 



X 



1 84 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

derstand why they should be tolerated upon the left hand, where, 
after all, you can smell them just as much as if they were upon 
the right. And a goat is not morally sensitive; it will not realise 
any indignity in being allowed only upon the left hand, while 
a sheep is too stupid to appreciate any compHment in being 
placed upon the right. However, this is no moment for theo- 
logical discussion. I was about to say that in the classics, in 
the Scriptures and by the old masters, a goat has always sym- 
boHsed evil, depravity, and general vileness. The moment you 
see goats, you understand this. Their cross-set agate eyes of 
salacious regard; their flat, ironical noses always a-snufifle, their 
thin, wicked mouths at the end of long lascivious faces — the 
thing is stamped upon them : goats are irremedially and im- 
memorially bad, and it is only the deep invulnerable stupidity 
of sheep which has prevented them from knowing it and beings 
corrupted by it, and has preserved to the world immaculate, 
snow-pure, the persistent, inalienable innocence of lambs. 

It was beautiful to watch these flocks, quitting the fast-^ 
nesses that have harboured them all summer, and now, ere the 
sparse vegetation of the high pastures is bedded with its first 
coverlet of snow, hurrying down to the open plain and the shel- 
ter of the reaped maize-fields. Jammed tight together, pouring 
along like a flood, running like a frothy river for a quarter of an 
hour at a time between the horses' legs and the wheels of the 
carriage, the whole road was blocked with them. Their backs 
were a woolly sea, the patter of their innumerable feet was like 
the tide upon a stony beach. One grew giddy as they surged by. 
What a reckoning there will be, when they reach the pastures, 
by the river below, to see how many more the herds number 
when they come back in the autumn than when they went up in 
the spring! The bronzed shepherds in huge brown felt cloak, 
black fur hat the size of any tea-cosy on their swart heads, hashlik 
draped at hazard in lines of inextinguishable grace upon their 
powerful shoulders, and ten-foot staff in hand, walk at their head,. 



THE GEORGIAN ROAD 185 

amidst them, and at the end behind the least and the weakest 
of the lambs. When they see our carriage, the sheep halt — 
halt as sheep always do, neatly, feet together very even, almost 
in the '' first position " of the dancing-class. Then the shepherd 
cries, in harsh and sharp falsetto — is it the cry of the hawk to 
call their woolly wits together, to assemble such odds of cunning 
as may have been given them for the eluding of their enemy the 
falcon or the eagle? — and the flock hurries forward at this cry, 
their little feet poaching the dirtied snow and making that deli- 
cate sound which belongs solely to the passing of many sheep 
and has something timid and feminine and diffident about it. 
Sometimes one startled, foolish face pokes between the legs of 
our horses, and at once a blind, unreasoning dozen of fool- 
followers dare the passage, so that the horse starts and screams 
in fright and is shouted at by the driver. 

When the stream is flowing evenly past the two carriages 
the shepherds whistle encouragingly and the cream-coloured 
dogs, with their sinister faces turned our way, pass with mis- 
trustful feet. They are too wearied to make any adverse demon- 
stration; for days they have been harrying the flock upon the 
mountains, collecting stragglers, constraining obstinate cHmbers, 
circumventing the astutely divagating goat, now dog-tired and 
sullen they are wending with the rest to the plain, their puppies 
— soft, furry love-pledges of a wild summer — looking over the 
edges of the saddle-pockets of the flock-donkey or the shepherd's 
horse. How innocent and frank and pretty are the puppy-faces; 
how charmingly they extricate first one and then another soft, 
supple paw, and hang it out till the shepherd sees them and hur- 
riedly crams it in again and binds the edges of the pocket tighter 
round the puppy neck. I was so enchanted by these creatures, 
even by the open enmity of their large savage parents, that I 
priced a ravishingly beautiful puppoose (that would be a nice 
word) and learned that its price was above roubles, and not even 
for five would its master part with it. Perhaps had I shown him 



i86 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



a gold-piece of five I should at this moment be cluttered, as the 
Yorkshire people say, with a cream-coloured Caucasian puppy 
of Circassian beauty and a latent savagery to terrify a whole 
English county. 

I dwell overlong upon these by-sights of the road, but in- 
deed most of our first day went in passing that sea of sheep 
and goats, and the dogs and the humble flock-donkey, bridleless 




The Georgian Road— a Woolly Wave. 

and bitless and burdened with all the huge hairy felt mantles of 
the shepherds, pattering meekly among the crowd, were always 
with us. After a spell of a dozen versts or so, we drew up at a 
post-station. These, like the excellent military road, are main- 
tained by the Government, and entertainment can be had at 
them of a modest character. In the barrack-like building, very 
grey and cold, we passed instinctively toward a door on which 



THE GEORGIAN ROAD 187 

was the word '' Buffet," written phonetically in Russian letters 
to rhyme with " muffet." A little bar, with " snacks " of sausage, 
herring, and Caucasian cheese in front, and bottles of vodka at 
the back, rewarded us. 

The shadow of the mountains fell upon this posting-house, 
and in the sharp cold a camel and a scatter of bristly pigs made 
an odd group. Soon our fresh horses were harnessed, and this 
time, as we followed the course of a little river in a large and 
gravelly bed, we feh ourselves at last among the mountains. 
The vegetation of the valley was interesting, and I indulged 
an old habit of collecting berries of shrubs and trees that were 
new — a thing that looked like a willow and had many orange- 
berries clustered tightly to its stem and long spines — also a 
spray of barberry, thinner and pinker than ours at home, to 
grow in my own far-away garden. Turkey oaks, falling now 
to yellow, crowded and hung from the cliff upon our right, and 
the usual sorts of rock-ferns nestled in the damp seams of the 
5tone. 

The engineering of the road was masterly, and, like all moun- 
tain-roads that have presented great difificulties, it every now 
and then made light of serious risk by running close to huge 
overhanging lumps of mountain which, if not to-day on my head, 
then to-morrow on yours, will descend convincingly. Every- 
where the greatest care is taken of this most important military 
highway — Russia's avenue into that country she coveted and 
fought for so long. It is easy to understand her passionate de- 
sire to possess this great range, this fine race or tangle of fine 
races, this fertile country on the southern slopes. If I were Rus- 
sia, and as flat as Russia, with only the Urals to point to as Rus- 
sian mountains, I should have wanted the Caucasus just as badly, 
and I would have sacrificed the men of whole provinces of plain 
life to possess them, as Russia did. 

Eight miles from Vladikavkaz is the posting-station of Balta; 
eleven miles farther is Lars; and five miles farther is the world- 



i88 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

famous Gorge of Dariel, the '' Caucasian Gates '' of Pliny, the 
dark and awful defile between Europe and Asia. Gradually, as 
we drive on, the hills rise and close in on us till at length they 
fall almost sheer to the edge of the rushing Terek and the nar- 
row road, leaving only just room for these at the bottom of a 
rocky cleft, 5,000 feet deep. The air strikes chill as a vault; not 
a ray of sunshine enters; the driver stoops low and lashes his 
horses; instinctively we lapse into silence. The geologist calls 
this gorge a '' fault," for it is not a pass over the mountain-chain, 
but a rent clear across it. To the imaginative traveller, how- 
ever, it is a fit scene for the most wonderful highway in history. 
Seventy years ago it was a perilous road, for avalanches, or the 
sudden outbursts of pent-up glacial streams, swept it from end 
to end, but the Russians have spent twenty million dollars upon 
it and made it safe. In 1877 nearly all their troops and stores 
for carrying the war into Turkey and Asia came by this road, 
and it will be used again for the same purpose, although to a 
much less degree, for there is now direct railway connection from 
Moscow to Baku, at one end of the Trans-Caucasian Railway^ 
and therefore to Kars itself, via Tiflis; and equally to Kars from 
Batum, at the other end, to which fortified port steamers would 
bring troops and supplies from Odessa and Novorossisk in the 
Black Sea. The gorges of the Yang-tsze may be as impressive 
— I have not seen them — but there is nothing in Europe which 
produces so profound an efifect of dread upon the mind as this 
lonely, silent, gloomy, cold abysm of Dariel. You do not won- 
der that any people holding it could bar the way to the rest o£ 
the world — the only cause for surprise is that before the present 
road was constructed anybody ever got through it at all. It 
even said, " Thus far and no farther," to Rome herself, and 
marked the limit of her dominion. 

The gorge ends suddenly, as we dash at a right angle over 
a narrow bridge, and find a most picturesque sight before us. 
The valley has now a flat floor between its two rugged walls o£ 



THE GEORGIAN ROAD 



189 



Tock, and man has turned such a narrow mountain-gap to his 
own uses, as was inevitable when Europe is at one end and Asia 
at the other, for suddenly, where the road widens to a few flat 
acres, a Russian fortress springs into view — a square building, 
with corner towers, battlements and loopholes, precisely the 
fortress of the fairy-tale and the box of bricks. The guide- 
book, even the trusty Murray, points out that the fort of Dariel 




The Georgian Road— Russian Fort in the Pass. 



is commanded by the surrounding mountains, but adds that " an 
enemy could not draw any cannon up their sides." This is quite 
true — unless they took their cannon up in balloons. A Cossack 
sentry lounges before the gate and scrutinises me suspiciously 
as I stop the carriage and get out my camera, but there is no 
other sign of life. The choice of such a spot, however, to dis- 
pute the passage of the Pass was anticipated long, long ago, for 



190 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



on the summit of a peak high above the modern fortress stand 
the ruins of a greater ancient castle, the rocky and impregnable 
home of the Princess Tamara — not her of history, but her of 
immortal legend, in which truth and fancy can never again be 
plucked apart. It is said that hither came all her lovers, an ever- 
flowing stream, since she was of resistless beauty, and that when 
her fancy tired of them they were hurled into the torrent be- 
low. In this castle passes the action of Lermontof's play " The 
Demon," but he has none of this gruesome story, though Tama- 
ra's beauty is there: 

Witness, thou star of midnight, witness, sun, 
Rising and setting, king upon his throne, 
Nor Shah of golden Persia, e'er did kiss 
A face so bright, so beautiful as this ; 
No houri in the noontide heat did lave 
A form so perfect in the fountain's wave. 
And lover's hand, since Eden's days, I trow, 
Ne'er smoothed the wrinkles from so fair a brow.* 

But as one gazes up at these ruins in the spot of all the world 
apt to breed the romance and passion and war of days when life 
was thick-set with such, one earnestly longs to pierce the trivial 
veil of legend and poetry, and know what really happened there 
— just the daily life of the men and women who looked along 
Dariel from that high-built eyrie. These battlemented and loop- 
holed towers repulse or yield to attacks which change with the 
changing years, but the stronghold of the heart knew then, as 
it knows to-day, but one plan of sap and mine, and it is rarely 
safe from treachery within. Princess Tamara, did your lonely 
castle in this gorge, so cold and dark at midday, keep you safe 
from the insidious foe? I would give much to know your story. 

The day was done when we came up to the post-house called 
after Mount Kasbek, and round us, in a close group, rose the 

* Storr's Translation. 



THE GEORGIAN ROAD 191 

splendid peaks of which he is the chief. Kasbek is to my eye 
more beautiful than Elbruz with its divided peaks; it is steeper, 
with terribly sheer slopes, gorges, and glaciers around it, itself 
ending in a savage spike of rocks against the sky, while Elbruz, 
really much higher and more difBcult to climb (Elbruz is 18,470 
feet and Kasbek 16,546"^), has larger and milder-looking sum- 
mits. This is a mistake in a mountain; the proper mountain is 
the blue and white kind, of which you can see at least ten thou- 
sand feet *' out of the ground," so to speak, with a peak offering 
room for no more than the two feet of one climber at a time, 
and he so perilously placed that he must hold a cloud by the tatl 
if he would stay there. This is the character of Kasbek — from 
below. 

The post-house is again a bleak white building, with a large 
square yard behind it, round three sides of which are stables to 
accommodate the numerous horses required for relays. In the 
middle of this yard another huge old camel is standing, his head 
balanced upon his absurd neck and his mouth supercilious as 
are all camels in the desert ; seen against this snowy background 
there is something irresistibly incongruous about his appearance. 
He prowls about, ungroomed, loose, ignored, padding silently 
where he is not wanted, thrusting his horrid nose into what does 
not concern him. At first I thought this beast was merely rest- 
ing between loads, but when he reappeared regularly at the end 

* Kasbek and Elbruz were first climbed in 1868 by Messrs. Douglas Freshfield, 
Comyns Tucker, and Adolphus W. Moore. When near the summit they sent back 
their guide, and his statements were at first received with absolute incredulity. But 
when the three Englishmen reappeared from the opposite valley, having gone up one 
side of the mountain and down the other, even the unwilling natives had to admit 
that the impossible had been accomplished. Elbruz was again climbed in 1875 
by Mr. F. Crauford Grove, and in 1884 by M. de Dechy, a Hungarian Alpinist. 
But the curious jealousy of foreigners makes local writers still loath to admit the 
fact, though repeated descriptions have made the ascents familiar to all the world. 
In his "Guide au Caucase," published in 1891, M. J. Mourier has this amusing 
sentence about Kasbek: " Trois anglais: Freschwild, Mour et Tecker, membres 
du club alpestre de Londres, pretendent etre parvenus jusqu'a sa cime le 18/30 Juin, 
1868." 



192 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



of each stage, I saw he served some curious purpose. It is this: 
droves of camels come from time to time over the Pass, and un- 
less the horses were accustomed to the sight and smell of these 
mis-shapen creatures they would take fright, perhaps where the 
way was narrow and the cHffs steep, and a catastrophe would 
result. Therefore at each station lives a camel, whose only busi- 
ness in life is to scare each passing horse into the contempt which 




^^ 






The Castle of Princess Tamara in the Gorge of Dariel, Georgian Road. 



familiarity breeds. Perhaps he understands this, and that is why 
he stalks unheard up to a panting, sweating animal quenching 
its thirst, and suddenly thrusts his long hairy face at it, just as 
naughty children say ''Boo!" to each other when they meet 
in the dark. It is one of those simple explanations which yet 
strike one as ludicrous, and at each post-house I am smitten 



THE GEORGIAN ROAD 193 

anew by this strange exigency, and this fresh proof of Russia's 
boundless ethnological complications. 

We are to stay over-night at Kasbek, and we make our- 
selves comfortable in the barrack-like chambers that are placed 
at our disposal. When we descend to the buffet for dinner, 
our enthusiasm hurls us in the direction of the national plat of 
shashlik — the delicious Caucasian mutton, cooked a la brocJie 
over a wood fire. We wait in happy impatience for its arrival, 
stemming our hunger with a zakiishka of raw herring, with brown 
bread, and drafts of quaint Caucasian wine, which we profess 
determinedly, if with some effort, to find delicious. 

By and by a profound and searching steam of rawish but not 
quite raw onion invades the bufifet; this is onion at its very 
worst moment; raw onion is tolerable, cooked onion is palat- 
able, onion that has merely suffered a heat-change is devastat- 
ing in its effect upon the soul of the feeder. We become nervous, 
and when a Circassian person comes in bearing that onion which 
is apparently allied to the hoped-for shashlik, we wince palpably. 

Some roughly chopped loin of mutton, smoked without and 
crude within, smothered in the aforesaid onion, manifests itself, 
and timidly we address ourselves to it. Fork and knife recoil 
simultaneously from each knobby piece, and one mouthful (which 
never gets any farther) contents each inquiring palate. The 
meat, hacked without any relation to its fibre, its grain, or its 
bones, is absolutely fresh, is also quite uncooked, and only hours 
of stewing could have made it fit to eat. 

" Would you try the plat national again? — it might be better 
here," says someone, a day or two later. " Not again," is the 
reply; "let us wait till we get to England; my cook does it 
beautifully: Navets de mouton a la broche. No more Circassian 
shashlik baa-ing at me, if you please." 

I made plans at Kasbek for an early ride up the mountains 
opposite, to see the little ancient church, 1,400 feet above us, 
of Tsminda-Sameba, not that of itself this presents much in- 



194 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



terest, but the view of the mountain, and especially of its great 
black side where Prometheus was chained (though the legend is 
inaccurate after all, for ^schylus distinctly speaks of Pro- 
metheus's rock as above the sea and far from the Caucasus), was 
said to be beautiful, and I wished to enjoy a ride in true Cau- 
casian spirit. A quarter to seven was the hour fixed, and I 
retired early, to be ready. When I arose at six, it was upon a 




The Georgian Road- Round the Mountain Side. 

world of snow that I looked out. Everything was white, and 
that broad-fiaked, Christmas-card kind of snow we used to have 
in England, was falling. The stables and the yard were white;: 
the poor camel even had little drifts between his humps, and 
absurd tufts of it all over him; you could not see fifty yards away, 
and all the mountains had retired within the veil. This put off 
my ride, and even alarmed us somewhat about the Pass and its 
condition. There was no mistake — the snow had come to stay; 



THE GEORGIAN ROAD 



^9S 



it was winter snow. What I saw fall as I looked out of the win- 
dow would be there till next April. 

We started at once, the hood of the carriage up, and little 
visible beyond the back of the driver in his thick pleated woollen 
gown, but all round in the grey air the broad flakes were in sus- 
pension, apparently falling with that slow deliberation, that in- 
credible downy lightness, and that incalculable vagary of direc- 
tion that characterise real snow. Suddenly, out of the grey 
mystery in front of us, a 
troop of Cossack soldiers 
came riding, a couple of 
hundred of them, return- 
ing from their service on 
the Armenian frontier to 
their little villages in the 
plain. These men are 
supplied with rifles and 
ammunition by Govern- 
ment; their wiry little 
horses, their armoury of 
sabres, knives, and pistols, 
are their own. Shrouded 
in the black, shaggy, felt 
cloak that descends to the 
horse's tail, and nearly 
covers their big felt 

boots in the short stirrups, cowled each in his pointed bashliky 
a hood with two ends wound round the neck and falHng down 
the back, they seemed like some ghostly procession of war- 
like friars passing in slow defile. Each cone-shaped silhouette 
upon his high saddle, with wild face — and what faces they were ! 
— looking straight in front of him was the incarnation of all 
that is picturesque, romantic, in a word, Caucasian. 

Presently the veil was lifted; the flakes grew slimmer and 




The Georgian Road, the Tdp of the Pass — 
Old Road. 



196 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

finer, the sun flashed out, the hood of the carnage was thrown 
back, and there beside us, mantled in a flawless ermine, was 
Kasbek and his court of peaks, bright and glittering against a 
heaven of Italian blue. In his winter majesty, every seam and 
fissure of yesterday, filled and smoothed with one night-fall of 
snow, he was scarce to be looked on by his subjects. And now, 
with many a zigzag, the road mounted in good earnest; we en- 
countered the immobile oxen yoked to the snow-ploughs, we 
came upon the artificial tunnels, made to accommodate ava- 
lanches. These places where the road suddenly runs under a 
stoutly timbered roof built against the mountain-side, bring home 
to one the chances of winter, and the eventualities that may — 
and often do — overtake the faithful post-wagon with its Euro- 
pean mails for Tiflis. As we approach them, I can imagine the 
tons of snow and loosened boulders plunging down the steeps 
toward the river, here growing slender as a thread, and the aw- 
ful thunder of them exploding over these man-made defences. 
Like all such work, and much of the construction work I have 
seen in Russia, these avalanche-roofs are splendidly built; there 
is no trail of the contractor over them; whether the Government 
does its own work or contractors are different here, I know not, 
but assuredly the highway by which Russia's Empire is moving 
sedulously forward is made to endure^ and to carry the great 
weight of her power. 

At the top of the Pass is a small cross upon the hill-side, 
standing out in black rehef upon a snowy shoulder. Many gen- 
erations ago it was set to mark the summit — 7,977 feet, and by 
the road is one of later date. This, then, is the second time dur- 
ing my present journey that I have crossed a montain-range 
from Europe into Asia. No Alpine pass, except the Stelvio, 
which is 9,040 feet high, is so high as this. Seldom can it be 
given to anyone to see great mountains in more exquisite aspect 
than I saw these at the top of that pass. Peak after peak bit- 
ing the sky in sharp outline; snow but a few hours old, sun and 



THE GEORGIAN ROAD 



197 



heavens dazzlingly clear and deeply blue; the air keen and in- 
toxicating; once more the never-faiHng though so often tasted 
intoxication of the East in front — it was one of the days of a life- 
time. 

Then came the wild rush from the water-parting to the val- 
ley. Two fresh horses and a hilarious driver, whom I encour- 




Crossing the Summit of the Georgian Road. 



aged by the promise of a rouble if he drove well, carried us at 
breakneck speed down a road zigzagging like the lacing of a foot- 
ball. On the north the range is barren and deserted, on the 
south it is green, with quaint villages nestling in fertile valleys 
and little haystacks by the thousand telling of a fragrant sum- 
mer past. At full gallop down the slopes, with a sickening swing 
round each corner, both inside wheels ofif the ground, we came, 



198 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

the driver, shouting in glee and swishing his savage little whip, 
looking back with a smile for approval as we just escaped going 
wholesale and headlong over the cliff at each turn. Having 
promised him one rouble to go fast I would gladly have given 
him several to go slow, but his own enjoyment was far too keen 
to heed our breathless protests. 

The vegetation on this southern side began with a sudden- 
ness almost unbelievable; first that obstinate and crouching lit- 
tle fir-tree, ascetic as a fakir, and nourished upon escarpments 
of pure rock and dark dreams not given to trees in whose 
branches birds nest and sing; then pines and oak-scrub; among 
these presently little sun-soaked hay-fields whose harvest, in 
pointed cocks, stood out oddly upon the snow. Then villages 
or colonies or farmlets of dwellings, half underground, and with 
the square, open cave-like front which marks all Eastern dwell- 
ings; flat-roofed, of course, and choked and huddled round with 
straw-stacks and mounds of winter fodder. I was much tempted 
to stop and explore one of these Httle places where the foot-sole 
of its occupants never knows what it is to stand upon the flat 
ground, save when indoors on the trodden earth of the humble 
living-room. 

With a swoop almost hawk-like in its sheerness and its sud- 
denness, we drop into the considerable settlement of Ananur, 
beside a river which is carrying the grey glacier water to the 
south. Here we are to harbour for the night, and only two gen- 
eral chambers, one for men and one for women, are at the dis- 
posal of travellers, for it is one of the smaller stations. The food 
is in that particular transition stage between archaism half-dis- 
dained and civilisation half-comprehended, which is the most try- 
ing of any; but again the wine of the country and its bread give 
sustenance to travellers who have never been in slavery to tables 
d'hote. 

In the morning a Caucasian gentleman with white hair and 
a self-possession princes might envy, came and poured water upon 



THE GEORGIAN ROAD 



199 



our hands and face from a jug, while we juggled with sponge and 
soap in a vain effort after even precarious cleanliness. In this 
matter we agreed that they do things handsomely in Ananur. 
None of us had ever been washed by a Circassian prince in full 
uniform before. (I think I am right in describing him as a prince; 
you are a prince in the Caucasus if you possess four sheep, so 
Russians say, jokingly, and I cannot beUeve that our friend had 




How the Georgian Road Comes Down at Mleti. 



a fleece less.) We wandered up to the strange little castle; it 
dates from the fifteenth century, and the shells of its square and 
tapering towers frame and crumble round a church of later date. 
Nothing about this church, save some half-obliterated frescos and 
the arabesques lettered beside its door, interested us, but in the 
river, a special breed of bull-trout mocks the prowess of the pass- 
ing fisherman, and there were smooth places beside the tails of 



200 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

water and sudden-coming '' races " in the hollows of banks where 
I should have delighted to see the dry-flies of a certain Liberal 
statesman friend alluringly floating. 

That day we made the second ascent of a smaller pass, this 
time always among cultivated slopes where the wheat was al- 
ready sprouting, the big, blue-grey buffaloes ploughing, and the 
little flat-roofed houses, all scraped out of the hill-sides, com- 
fortably fronting the southern sun. Visiting some of them, we 
found the cave-dwellers to be a handsome race indeed; the men 
tall, strong, and martial, bearded and bronzed and covered with 
weapons; the women gay in bright colors of blue and red and 
crimson, holding up babies whose small heads were covered with 
henna-tinted hair. Cocks, hens, cats, dogs, and a few little fluffy 
buffalo-calves all clustered in the shelter of these house-fronts, 
and on the roof huge, oval baskets of maize-cobs shone golden, 
very often with the owner seated smoking beside his store of 
winter provender. 

At Dushet we spent some time trying to get into the castle 
of Prince Tschliaief, which stood upon the hill, white, castellated, 
looking proudly across the valley at the little town with its grim, 
plain, red boxes of new Russian barracks. In point of appear- 
ance, the Prince's palace, which was also employed as a Police 
Station, was easily first in its expression of martial capability. 
Dushet is charmingly situated, and as it is within easy reach of 
the cosmopolitan pleasures of Tiflis, it is the place I should 
recommend for a prolonged spring or autumn stay on the Geor- 
gian Road. 

Ancient history pervades the Caucasus, and the last town on 
the road is a strange link between past and present. This is 
Mtskhet, the ancient capital of Georgia. The race to which it 
belongs — or rather belonged — believes it to be the oldest town 
in the world, founded by Noah's great-great-great grandson, 
while even sober historians recognise it at the beginning of the 
fourth century. Here lived and reigned all the Tsars of Geor- 



THE GEORGIAN ROAD 



20 1 



gia; hither came the Vandals of Tamerlane and rased the cathe- 
dral, but Tsar Alexander L of Georgia rebuilt it, and under its 
aisles lie Georgia's rulers and wise men. The cathedral itself 
was built originally in 328 a.d., over the spot where Christ's, 
seamless robe, brought from Golgotha either by a Jew or by 
the Centurion Longinus — the legends differ — and given by 
him to his sister Sidonia, was found. She wrapped it around 
her, fell dead, and as it could not be detached from her body, 
she was buried in it, and until it was carried off to the Cathe- 
dral of the Assumption at Moscow, a holy oil exuded from 
the very stones above the precious relic. Such was old 
Mtskhet. To-day it is a railway station on the line from 
Batum to Baku, the point where the military road meets the 
military railway — a plain village, but ennobled by the ruins 
of palaces and churches telling of the wonders of the days 
when Tsars lived here, before the proud name went north. 




Shoeing- an Ox in the Caucasus. 



CHAPTER XIV 
TIFLIS OF THE CROSS-ROADS 

THE German philologist, Professor Brugsch, has calculated 
that seventy languages are spoken in Tiflis. That simple 
statement, pondered long enough, might almost suffice to de- 
scribe the city. It is the modern Babel, the meeting-place of 
Europe and Asia, the cross-roads of the great routes north and 
south, and east and west, the focus of a score of keenly trading 
peoples, the conglomerate deposit of two thousand years of busy 
history. Over this complication Russia rules easily and well. It 
is an excellent example of how she carries civilisation to Eastern 
peoples. 

Externally, half of Tiflis is a little Paris, or a prettier Bucha- 
rest. A mass of tin roofs, painted in pale green and Indian red, 
makes a pleasant colour impression as you approach the city 
from the mountains, but to see it in its real and remarkable 
picturesqueness, as shown in my illustration, it must be viewed 
from the remains of the old fortress, or the Botanical Garden 
beside it, at the other end of the town. It lies at the bottom of 
a brown, treeless valley, between steep hills, on either side of 
the river Kura. This may not sound very attractive, but there 
is an abruptness about the contours and a serpentine twist about 
the river that make it one of the most strikingly placed towns I 
know. In summer, as might be guessed from its position and 
from the additional fact that it has a phenomenally small rain- 
fall, Tiflis is stifling and intolerably hot, but in winter the same 
conditions render it a delightful residence, perfectly sheltered 
from the cold winds that sweep from the mountains and the 



TIFLIS OF THE CROSS-ROADS 



203 



plain to the southeast, and by its dry atmosphere admirably 
suited to people with weak lungs. 

It is a place of great importance to modern Russia. It forms, 
to begin with, the end of the military road across the Caucasus, 
which, though the railway now goes round the eastern coast 
to Baku, is still the quickest way to Europe, and all the mails 
come over it by fast coach. It is midway between Baku and 
Batum; that is, between the Caspian and the Black Sea, be- 




Tiflis. 



tween Europe and Asia when you go east and west, as well as 
when you go north and south. The railway is now open to Kars, 
that frontier fortress which, not long ago the Russian objective, 
Avill some day be her base for an advance into Armenia and far 
beyond. Tiflis, in fact, is thinking of the future, as you are 
reminded when you go to the topographical department of the 
General Stafif to buy the magnificent maps they sell, and see a 
dozen ofBcers working busily over their drawing-boards. 



204 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

And Russia has developed her Caucasian capital in a man- 
ner worthy of its importance. In the modern town the streets 
are wide and paved and Hghted by electricity, the shops are 
large and handsome, there is a public garden with winding walks 
and fine trees, excellent tramways run in all directions, and the 
public carriages, leather-upholstered and rubber-tyred, are far 
superior to those of St. Petersburg or Moscow — in fact, the 
best I have seen anywhere. The of^cial buildings are numerous 
and imposing — Russia always takes care of this. The cathedral 
is a magnificent edifice, the Governor-General's palace dignified 
without and splendid within, there is a new and elaborate opera- 
house, and of course a number of military buildings. The mu- 
seum is extremely interesting for its collections of all the animals 
and birds of the Caucasus, all the geological products, and a 
fascinating series of figures and domestic implements illustrating 
the ethnology of all the local races. While I was there an agri- 
cultural exhibition was held, and the quality and variety of prod- 
ucts shown were astonishing. Some of the vegetables were 
so remarkable that I wrote and asked for seeds, which were 
sent promptly by official post and are now germinating under 
the surprised eyes of a Hampshire gardener. In matters like 
this, let me remark once for all, the Russian authorities are 
courtesy itself to foreigners who approach them courteously and 
are genuinely interested in what they are doing. Finally, the 
Hotel de Londres is the first really civilised and comfortable 
hotel I have found in Russia — and this is in Asia! I dwell upon 
these matters because the striking fact about Tiflis is that Rus- 
sian rule has made a handsome, clean, safe, civilised, and merry 
little town out of a jumble of dirty, jarring Eastern races, outside 
her European frontier, and far from anywhere. 

But one does not go to Asia to see Europe, and Rostom, the 
guide, in Circassian costume, with long poniard and war-medal, 
haunts the hall of the hotel. To test the German philologist, I 
ask him how many languages he speaks. He does not remember^ 



TIFLIS OF THE CROSS-ROADS 



205 



but proceeds to count them upon his fingers. Russian, Mingrel- 
ian — his native tongue — Georgian, Armenian, Persian, Lesghian, 
Gruznian — I can't remember them, and I don't know how to 
spell them, but it is an extraordinary list. And he needs them 
all in an hour's stroll through the bazaar. Ten minutes in a 
tramway from the hotel door transports you into a piece of 




Tiflis and the Ruins of the Citadel. 



Baghdad or Tehran, and one of the very few Eastern bazaars I 
have seen which has not its eye fixed, so to speak, upon the 
Western purchaser. A few things in the silversmiths' shops are 
for the foreigner, but otherwise, if you go there, you go as the 
native goes, you see what the native sees, you haggle as the 
native haggles, and you get what the native gets. This is re- 
freshing when one remembers the bazaar in Cairo, for instance, 



2o6 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

where the tourist buys with solemn precautions and secret glee 
things specially made for him in Birmingham or Germany, which 
an Oriental passes with a contemptuous shrug. 

If one half of Tifiis is like Europe, the other half is purely 
Oriental. Narrow, steep, ill-paved streets; mysterious houses 
hiding the life within behind closed doors and shuttered win- 
dows; the merchant sitting among his wares — the silversmiths 
in one street, the arms-makers in another, the shoemakers, the 
carpet-dealers, the fruit-sellers, the perfume-venders, each trade 
in its own quarter. And what things to buy, if one has money 
and time — the two equally essential components of an Eastern 
bargain! Through this low door-way and behind this common- 
place shop is a dark warehouse piled high with carpets in moun- 
tainous profusion. Here is every fraud ready for the unwary 
or unknowing purchaser, but here, also, if your eye is sharp and 
your tongue smooth and your experience trustworthy and your 
time and patience without limits, is a brocade from the palace of 
one of the old Khans of Nukha, vassals of Persia in time gone 
by; this is a silken carpet from Isfahan, in the golden days of 
Shah Abbas, two hundred years old, priceless; that rug was 
woven by Tekke girls in the tent of nomad Turkomans, a pat- 
tern never copied but preserved in memory from the times of 
Tamerlane; this drugget issued long ago from the loom of Kurd- 
ish women of Erivan; the roll of rainbow-coloured silk came 
slowly to light, like a dragon-fly above a reeking pond, in a mud 
hovel of the torture-town of Bokhara, fieriest hot-bed of Mussul- 
man fanaticism. The merchant will show you, too, turquoises 
— handfuls of them, all small or of the worthless greenish hue. 
Many times you ask him if he has not bigger turquoises and he 
shakes his head. At the back of his iron strong-box, wrapped 
in a dozen crumpled papers, he has a great one, of that mar- 
vellous and indescribable blue which nature has produced only 
in this stone. Will much persuasion wheedle it into sight for a 
moment, or much money secure its possession forever? Maybe, 



TIFLIS OF THE CROSS-ROADS 



207 



but I have my doubts, and they are based upon the unchanging 
truth that at last, between East and West, pride of race is stronger 
than greed of gold. To console you, however, for the unattain- 
able azure, you may find and carry off a blue scimetar from 
Daghestan, a wrought-iron staff surmounted by an ox-head with 
which some old Persian »'^'^^ immm»m_^^^^i^< 
officer has led his men to 
battle, a Georgian pistol 
inlaid with silver niello 
work, and a choice bit of 
gold-encrusted ivory from 
Kazi-Kumyk. 

But Tiflis, this " pre- 
cipitate of history," these 
cross-roads between Eu- 
rope and Asia, excites 
your wonder and enchains 
your recollection chiefly 
for its human conglome- 
rate. Most of the speak- 
ers of its many tongues 
have their distinctive cos- 
tume, and indeed their 
own well - marked faces. 
There is no mistaking the 
Tatars with their hats in 
the shape of a truncated 
cone, the aquihne-featured 
Lesghians, the swarthy Persians with their long-pointed hats 
of astrakhan fur, the Armenians with their flat caps, the Turko- 
mans in huge shaggy hats of sheepskin, the Wiirtemberg- 
ers of the German colony in the old Swabian costume, and 
most marked of all, the Georgians in the tcherkess, with the 
khazir, the row of cartridge cases, across the breast. The native 




A Bit of Old Tiflis. 



-208 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



gentleman, an officer of high rank and long service in war, who 
strides into the hotel dining-room in his uniform of chestnut and 
Indian red, jingling with small-arms and hung with medals even 
as a Zulu is strung with cowries, is certainly one of the most 




A Caucasian Type — Rostom the Guide. 



striking figures I have ever seen. In fact, I do not remember 
to have been in the society of so many distinguished-looking peo- 
ple in my life before; a group of princes of the blood, ambassa- 
dors, and commanders-in-chief would have everything to learn 



TIFLIS OF THE CROSS-ROADS 209 

from them in the matter of deportment. No matter who they 
may be — the Smiths and Joneses, possibly, of Georgia and 
Daghestan — their manners and their clothes hit off the choicest 
expressions of dignity and distinction. That full-skirted woollen 
coat, flying round the fine riding-boots, and hiding trousers of 
carmine silk; that tight-fitting body-part, open at the breast to 
show a shirt of richest cream-colour, hooked smartly over the 
ribs and narrowly girdled at the waist by a belt of chased metal, 
worn very tight, from which hang silver-worked poniard, sabre, 
pistol-holster and other strange fittings, combine to form a cos- 
tume of infinite spirit, to which the row of cartridges, sewn on 
a cunning slant on each side of the breast, are a splendid finish, 
even though the cartridges are but dummy bits of wood, with 
gold or silver heads. Added to all this, the port of the head in 
its black sheepskin hat, and the whole martial bearing, make 
€very man a field-marshal and the hero of a hundred fights — to 
look at. 

Are the women of Georgia as beautiful as we have always 
been told? When they become matrons, which is at an early age, 
they are too stout and broad in the beam for beauty, but in their 
youth, I should judge from glimpses at windows and passing 
faces, there may well be extraordinary loveliness among them — 
the loveliness of perfectly chiselled features true to the racial 
type, large calm dark eyes, firm, full mouth, alabaster skin, in- 
digo-black hair — the precise antithesis of the piquancy of irregu- 
lar features and nervous temperament which generally passes for 
beauty among ourselves. These are women, you feel, whose lips 
would whisper passionate love or, if times allowed, sing high 
the song that sends their men to battle — whose fingers would 
grasp the dagger or fall lightly across the strings of the lute, with 
equal aptness. Dagger and war-song, however, are out of date 
in the Caucasus to-day. 

One of the quaintest sights of the whole bazaar is its wine. 
The district of Kakhetia, not far from here, produces red and 



aio 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



white wine, and a wine neither red nor white, but of the colour 
of tawny port and the taste of brown sherry. This is for the 
well-to-do; the people's wine, costing incredibly little, is thin and 
acid, but quite pure. Of course I have seen in many Eastern 
countries wine-skins and water-skins, but a whole ox filled with 
wine took me by surprise. There he lay at the diikhan door, on 
his back, his feet and head cut off and the holes tied up, bloated, 
enormous. You call for a glass and the lace is loosed from his 




Tiflis— Wine-skins and the Wine-shop. 



foreleg and out pours the wine. The wine-shop itself is below the 
street, and below it is a deeper cellar where a match shows row 
upon row of these truncated wine-filled beeves, a bovine cata- 
comb. In the dukhan nearer the Persian bazaar I spent some rare 
hours, eating black bread, smoking tobacco from Isfahan, drink- 
ing the slender vintage from the foreleg of the burdyuki, and 
listening to thrilling tales of Shamyl from one who had fought 
against him for ten years. 



TIFLIS OF THE CROSS-ROADS 211 

Another experience of Tiflis is the bath. It is a luxurious, 
modern, tile-fronted building in the heart of the Armenian ba- 
zaar, belonging to a prince whose name escapes me. Abundant 




The Shampooer of Tiflis. 

springs of water strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydro- 
gen supply it, and in its vaulted chambers, far below the street, 
there is no sound but the splash of the fountain and the rolling 
echo of one's own voice. The masseur, however, distinguishes 
the bath of Tiflis. He is a Persian, speaking but a word or 
two of Russian. His head is shaved, round his waist a rag is 
twisted, and his feet are dyed orange. First he rubs you like 
the shampooer of Jermyn Street, then suddenly, as you lie 
face downwards on the marble slab, he is upon your back, his 
heels dug into your spine, his hands grasping your shoulders 
to increase the pressure, and slowly, with skilful appreciation 
of the lie of every muscle, his feet grind up and down your 
back — they encircle your neck — they are on your head ! Then 
he vaults lightly ofT, and in a moment, from a linen bag filled 
with soap, he has squeezed clouds of perfumed bubbles, and 
you are hidden in them from head to feet, as completely as 
if you had fallen into a snow-drift. 



212 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



So far, all is tolerable, if rather startling, but when, wrapped 
in linen and bettirbanned, you call for a cigarette and he brings 
one, Hghts it between his own lips and w^ould put it between 
yours, the prejudices of the West arise, and you repulse the 
well-meant intention of that orange-footed Oriental. The bath 
costs yoii six shillings, but cleanliness is always a luxury in the 
East. 



It will occur to many readers, no doubt, to ask what is the 
political condition of these strangely mingled and once vigorous 
nationalities, and how they are affected toward their great rulers. 




A Chat at the Wine-shop. 



In spite of the enthusiasm they evoke, the small nationalities al- 
most disappear politically in the face of the colossal interests of 
the Great Powers which control them directly or indirectly, and 
the Caucasus is no exception to this rule. Before the Russo- 




A WANDERING BEGGAR, TIFLIS. 



TIFLIS OF THE CROSS-ROADS 215 

Turkish War the Georgians stood high in Russian favour; they 
held important pubHc offices, and the social relations between 
them and Russian officials were cordial. During the war doubts 
arose as to their loyalty, and the Armenians took advantage of 
this to push their own interests. Their well-known trading and 
financial gifts were of much use to the Russians and very profit- 
able to themselves. But the Armenians have shared the fate 
of the Georgians, for the Armenian troubles in Turkey bred a 
certain amount of real political agitation, and evoked fears of a 
great deal more, with the not unnatural result that the Russian 
authorities now cry a plague on both their houses, and exclude 
Georgians and Armenians alike from office and influence. This 
action, again, is naturally being followed by a recrudescence of 
national feeling, especially among the Georgians. The national 
costume, once almost abandoned, is now the fashion; the national 
literature is being fostered; and Georgian women talk less gossip 
and more politics. 

But all this has no serious significance. Mr. Oliver War- 
drop, in his ''Kingdom of Georgia" (1888), wrote: "Should 
Russia ever become involved in a great war, Georgia would 
undoubtedly declare her independence and endeavour to seize 
the Dariel Road; the Armenians and Lesghians would also 
revolt, each in their own way." My own opinion is that any 
enemy of Russia that counted upon this would be disappointed; 
the time is past for a Georgian political nationality, unless, in- 
deed, Russia should be already so hopelessly defeated as to break 
up of her own weight. I doubt much whether, in spite of their 
good looks and their martial clothes, the Georgians possess ca- 
pacity for any struggle or for the organisation which it would 
necessitate if successful. Sporadic risings there might be if 
Russia were defeated once or twice, but they would be crushed 
without the sHghtest difficulty, and the only chance of success 
they might have would be when Russia was too exhausted even 
to attempt to put them down. Moreover, I saw no reason why 



2i6 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

the Georgians should wish to revoh, for they are not oppressed 
in any way, they have practically all the chances that Russians 
themselves enjoy, they are treated very gently as regards mili- 
tary service, and it is perfectly certain that if for any cause Russia 
should cease to protect them, some other Power would have to 
do so, for they are now incapable of taking care of themselves 
or standing sword in hand, as they once did, between Europe and 
the pressing hordes of Asia. In a w'ord, the little nationalities of 
the Caucasus present no political problem. 



In a previous chapter I showed how the inevitable trend of 
Russia is to the sunrise and the warm water. The Caucasus af- 
fords a further striking example of this. As may be seen by a 
glance at my map (which shows railways projected and under 
construction, not to be found, I believe, elsewhere), Russia is 
stretching out her arm rapidly to the south, toward Persia and 
its warm and commercial gulf which leads straight to India and 
the East, in the shape of roads and raihvays. Already a railway 
runs from Tiflis to Kars, and several other schemes are on foot 
for further facihties of transport in the same direction. A railway 
is already begun, and will be finished in three or four years, from 
Karakles, below^ Alexandropol, down the valley of the Arpa-chai 
to the valley of the Aras (Araxes), then by the side of the Aras 
to Erivan. and on to Nakhitchevan and Julfa on the Russo-Per- 
sian frontier. Another railway is under survey and considera- 
tion from Baku to Astara and Tabriz, with an alternative scheme 
from Yevlach. on the present line, through Jebrail to Tabriz. An 
important military road, about which not much is heard, runs 
from Batum to Artvin, thence to Ardanautch, thence to Ardahan, 
thence to Kars. It is metalled from Batum to x-Vrtvin, and is 
being widened from Artvin to Ardanautch. It has been metalled 
and in use for some time from Ardahan to Kars. Plans and 
performances like these, at a time w^hen money is scarce in Russia^ 



2i8 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

mean only one thing. And I believe, though much secrecy is 
observed upon the matter, that the railway which Russia hopes 
to lay through Persia to the sea, the route of which has already 
been roughly surveyed, is intended to start on the frontier at 
Julfa, and run, via Ahar, to Tabriz, Teheran, Isfahan, and Yezd, 
and past Bunder Abbas to the Indian Ocean. But this railway 
raises an international question of extreme delicacy, to which I 
return later.* 

Such is the Caucasus, in its various aspects — a rapid glance 
at a great subject. I hope I have gone a little way, at any rate, 
toward justifying my remark at the outset that it is perhaps on 
the whole the most interesting land of the world. It has been, 
as I said, unaccountably neglected, but I feel sure in advance of 
the thanks of any, whether travellers in search of new scenes or 
capitalists on the lookout for new enterprises, who take my ad- 
vice and visit it for themselves. 

* See Chapters XVII. and XXIV. 

7"Ae Times has just learned, "from a trustworthy source," that the Russians 
have decided to proceed at once with the construction of a railway which will connect 
their Trans-Caspian line with the Persian province of Khorassan. This line will start 
from Askhabad and be carried to Meshed, and the construction is expected to be 
pushed forward rapidly. The line will enter Persian territory at Kettechinar, run up 
the Deregez valley, and keep along the river side until it strikes the existing main road 
to Meshed between Durbadan and Imamkulich. A large party have been at work 
pegging out the line, and attached to this party have been M. Stroieff, Dragoman of 
the Meshed Russian Consulate, and the Ikram-ul-Mulk, late Karguzar of Kuchan. 
Difficulties were met with in passing through villages, but it is said that these have 
been arranged, and the Ikram-ul-Mulk has been given 12,000 roubles as a present. 
It is understood in Askhabad that the money for the railway has been sanctioned and 
is ready, and that the Russian Bank will open a branch almost immediately in Meshed 
to assist the financing of the works. A gentleman from St. Petersburg was named 
manager of the bank in Meshed, another official was to come from Teheran, and Ali 
Askar Khan, the interpreter of the State Bank, Askhabad, was also under orders to 
proceed to Meshed. "There is," the Thyies adds, "a feeling of great uneasiness 
amongst the official classes in Meshed, as it is impossible to predict what the advent 
of this railway means." It means that Russia is hurrying upon her "historic 
mission " in view of Germany's haste upon the enterprise described in Chapter XVII. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE OIL-WELLS OF BAKU 

FATE has thrown a good many strange sights in my way, 
but I think the oil-wells of Baku are as strange as any. 
Directly after reaching the hotel I was called to the telephone, 
and invited by Mr. Tweedy, at Balakhani, six miles away, to 
spend the night there and see the wells next day. So I found 
myself, after dark, driving from the little station of Balakhani 
to the headquarters of the Russian Petroleum and Liquid Fuel 
Company. The mud was a foot deep, there was no road in par- 
ticular, but the droschky-driver took the direction which prom- 
ised the best chance of escaping an upset, and we rocked about 
till I was quite resigned to find myself floundering. The sur- 
roundings were positively weird. Every few yards a pyramidal 
structure, huge and ill-defined in the dark, towered up; within 
each was machinery hard at work, and mysterious hangings and 
splashings issued; in boiler-houses the lurid glow and fierce roar 
of petroleum furnaces made night alarming; and the whole air 
was thick with the reek of oil. I longed for morning to bring 
some sort of unity into this peculiar Hades. 

With daylight came not only unifying knowledge, but also 
fascination. To a man with imagination the business of petro- 
leum-getting must combine in itself the things which delight the 
gold prospector, the sportsman, the surgeon, the mechanician 
and the gambler. Like the prospector, the oil-seeker may look 
long in vain, and then suddenly run full tilt against riches. 
Like the sportsman, he may have the quarry just within his reach, 

and then in a second lose it. Like the surgeon, he uses instru- 

219 



220 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

ments to perform strange and delicate tasks in the dark, guided 
only by a fine sense of touch and a knowledge of the body in 
which he is working. Like the mechanician, he must always be 
inventing new and more ingenious tools. Like the gambler, he 
ranges headlong over rising and falling values. After the pen, 
I think the oil-borer would be my choice of implement where- 
with to solve the great problem. 

To leave generalities and come to plain facts, this is in brief 
the story of an oil-well. The mysterious processes of nature, 
whether animal or vegetable — probably the former — which pro- 
duce petroleum in the bowels of the earth, have taken place in 
an unusual degree under the eastern shore of the Caucasian pe- 
ninsula, where the town of Baku has risen — and where, I may 
incidentally add, this town has increased by twenty-five per cent, 
in fifteen months, where house rents have doubled in the same 
time, and where you may see a string of camels crossing a tram- 
way line under an electric light. This petroleum-bearing land 
used to be leased by the Russian Government at a nominal rental; 
now it is put up to auction. A certain number of pouds (a poud 
is thirty-six lbs.) of oil is supposed to be available for a certain 
area, and the bidding is by kopecks (say farthings) per poud of 
that number. Having acquired the land, the concessionaire pro- 
ceeds to sink his wells. First he erects the pyramidal wooden 
structure, about seventy feet high, called the " derrick," with a 
large grooved wheel, like that over a colliery shaft, at its apex. 
He puts in an engine and a winding drum, and then the digging 
begins. It is of the first importance to have as wide a shaft as 
possible, because the wider the shaft the greater the dimension 
of the '' baler," or elongated bucket, in which the oil is ultimately 
brought to the surface, and therefore the greater the yield of 
oil per diem and the larger the profit. So nowadays the first 
tubes of wrought iron of which the well consists may be as wide 
as twenty-eight or thirty inches. A kind of huge spade, weigh- 
ing perhaps half a ton, is suspended from a beam, which balances 



THE OIL-WELLS OF BAKU 



121 



like the beam of a beam-engine. This spade is fixed to its shaft 
by a sort of bayonet catch, and when the beam lifts the whole 
apparatus a man standing over the well gives it a half turn, and 
the spade falls two feet, striking the ground a heavy blow, the 
beam allows the shaft to fall upon it, pick it up and raise it again, 
the man gives another half turn, the spade falls again, and so on 
for hours with ex- 
traordinary rapid- 
ity, the spade fall- 
ing perhaps thirty 
times a minute. 
This is known as 
the "free fall" sys- 
tem, from the Ger- 
man Freifall. Af- 
ter a while the 
earth is extracted 
by means of a co- 
lossal shell-auger, 
and the iron tube 
is lowered into 
place. 

The spades are 
of all shapes and 
sizes, and so far all 
is plain sailing. 
But by and by ac- 
cidents happen. 

Spades break, tubes collapse under the enormous pressure 
necessary to force them into place, steel ropes and chains give 
Avay and precipitate the whole apparatus into the well, or the 
apparatus gets twisted or broken and jams fast perhaps a 
thousand feet below the surface. Or perhaps even a wrench 
or a heavy bolt falls into the well — quite enough to prevent 




A " Fountain " at Baku. 



Ill ALL THE RUSSIAS 

the " free fall " from working-. Then the fun begins — not 
that the well-owner regards it as fun at all. But the business 
of picking up these things seems to me an intoxicating task. 
Remember that your accident has happened perhaps 1,500 feet 
underground, in a tube perhaps a foot in diameter, perhaps 
only six inches, for, as the well goes deeper, its diameter de- 
creases. You do not know what the accident is — you only 
know that something, perhaps everything, has gone to smash 
down there. Or you may know that you *have a ton of broken, 
twisted iron jammed tight in the narrow iron tube, with a 
quarter of a mile of wire rope or chain piled up pell-mell on the 
top of it. Your business is to get it all out — and the oil-borer 
does get it all out. In his workshop are laid side by side scores 
of surgical instruments — tweezers, pincers, forceps, probes, 
snares, ecrascurs, expanding things which grasp a tube by the 
inside, revolving knives which cut a three-inch iron bar or a 12- 
inch tube, eccentric hooks which put straight anything lying on 
its side, so that the pincers can seize it, and in fact a replica of 
every ghastly implement of modern surgery that I know, except 
a speculum. There is this little difference, however, that each of 
these instruments weighs a quarter of a ton or more, that a whole 
day is not too much in which to lower it, let it do its work, or fail 
to do it, and hoist it up again, and that the oil-surgeon has noth- 
ing whatever to guide him except the light of pure imaginative 
genius and the waggle in his hand of a wire rope which has half 
a ton dangling from it a quarter of a mile below. The reader 
should not now be surprised when I add that in a moment some- 
thing drops into the well, and that it sometimes takes the most 
skilful engineer six months to pick it up. I looked with pro- 
found respect upon the man who accomplishes such things. He 
happened to be a Caucasian prince, but that had nothing to do 
with my admiration. Never in my life have I seen anything 
which demanded such infinite patience. Waiting for the Foreign 
Ofihce to publish a Blue-book is child's play in comparison. 



THE OIL-WELLS OF BAKU 223 

But at length the engineer has his splendid reward. The oil 
stratum is reached, he rolls affectionately in his hand the slimy 
sand that the digger brings up — he is sure there is oil! So to the 
wire rope a hollow cylinder, twenty to thirty feet long and an 
inch or two less in diameter than the lowest tubes, with a plunge- 
valve at the bottom, is attached, and cautiously lowered. It 
comes back by and by, the valve is pushed open as it is gently 
lowered upon a board, and out pours a quarter of a ton of sand, 
slime, water — and the precious oil. At last it is only oil, and 
then the well is pumped night and day till it runs dry. 

It takes on an average fifteen months to dig a well, and may 
cost five or six thousand pounds. The tubes alone for a well 2,000 
feet deep cost £3,000. But perhaps it will give you five hundred 
tons of oil a day. The average life of a well may be said to be 
three years, but of course it is often vastly more. There is, it 
must be added, the horrid chance — rare hereabouts — that after all 
your boring you may find nothing. Three miles from here a Rus- 
sian well-owner sank a well 1,995 ^^^t and failed to get a trace of 
oil. But on the other hand — and this is where the gambler's ex- 
citement comes in — you may have the delirious joy of getting a 
" fountain," and then hats are thrown up and dividends mount 
skyward. A " fountain " is an artesian well of oil which bursts 
upward with incredible force and gives you as much oil in a minute 
for nothing as you could pump in twenty-four hours of labour and 
expense. Perhaps it blows the huge baler through the derrick 
roof and into somebody else's boiler-house, knocks the derrick it- 
self into splinters, hurls up great ston.es like cannon-balls, buries 
the machinery in sand and slime and oil, and floods the reservoirs 
and roads — nitchevo, the more the better, it is coining gold for 
its lucky owners. The Russian Petroleum Company had a '* foun- 
tain " once which gave forty million pouds of oil in two months. 
The world went very well then. Curiously enough, a fountain 
made its welcome appearance on the same property the very day 
I went to say good-bye to Mr. Tweedy, its managing director 



^24 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

in London, whom by good luck I found at Baku, and he had of 
course rushed off to see it. This is a good opportunity for me 
to say how much I am indebted to Mr. Tweedy for the oppor- 
tunities of studying and understanding the business of oil-getting. 
His knowledge of the subject is minute and profound, he has 
rendered great services to the successful investment of British 
capital in Baku, and after what I have written it is perhaps hardly 
necessary to add that his enthusiasm is contagious. 

Such is, in hasty outline, the business of oil-getting on its 
mechanical side. Imagine a couple of thousand of these black 
derricks crowded together, with a network of little canals, res- 
ervoirs dug in the ground, and pipes innumerable just laid about, 
one above another, exactly as they happened to lie most con- 
veniently — the pipes which carry off the oil to the reservoirs at a 
little distance, the whole place ceaselessly reeking, smoking, 
steaming, and humming, and you know what Balakhani looks like, 
and why it seemed so strange to me when I drove through it at 
night. 

Since so much British capital is invested in this district cer- 
tain statistics concerning the production of oil may be read with 
interest, especially since they point to some important conclu- 
sions regarding the future prospects of the industry. The num- 
ber of firms and companies engaged in 1899 was 160, owning 
1,357 active wells. Of these firms 62 sprang up during the pre- 
vious two years, and 26 of them were still at the boring stage. 
All attempts to '' strike oil," in spite of extensive and deep boring, 
outside the five proved areas of the Apsheron Peninsula, namely, 
Bibi-Eibat and the great oil-field formed by Balakhani, Sabuntchi, 
Romani and Binagadi, have proved wholly unsuccessful. The 
total output for 1899 * (to which the Binagadi area contributed 
very little) was 2, 1 67,80 1 , 1 30 gallons. This was over 1 62,000,000 
gallons more than in 1898, but though this great increase looks 

* The figures here given are taken from the report of the official Russian supervisor 
of the petroleum industry at Baku, as published in the official Viestnik Finanzof. 



THE OIL-WELLS OF BAKU 



225 



very satisfactory at first sight, further examination gives it a less 
encouraging aspect. In the first place, the relative increase com- 
pared with previous years shows a marked decline; and second, 
these increases are nothing like so great as the increases in energy 
and expenditure in boring operations. In 1899 the enormous 
sum of £2,600,000 was spent on boring alone, and 572,761 feet 
of wells were bored, against 402,605 feet in 1898 — an increase 
of over 42 per cent. Thus for a 42 per cent, increase of effort, 
only an 8 per cent, increase of output was obtained. This is not 




The Railway Station, Baku. 



quite so bad as it looks, for a number of wells, especially on the 
Bibi-Eibat area, were only commenced in the second half of the 
year, and could not have become productive. But it points to 
the serious fact* that the whole oil-field is becoming less produc- 
tive. This conclusion is clearly borne out by other figures. The 
number of inactive wells, for instance, has increased by nearly 
50 per cent., whereas the number of active wells has increased by 
only 24 per cent. Of the five areas, moreover, only Sabuntchi and 
Balakhani showed an absolute increase of output. Most sig- 
nificant of all, however, are the facts that the " fountains " — i.e.. 



226 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

wells where the oil is forced to the surface by confined gas, show- 
ing that the seam has no other sufficient outlet — have decreased 
by one-half; and that the average productiveness of wells has 
regularly diminished, while their average depth has as regularly 
increased. This is strikingly shown by the official figures when 
arranged thus : 

Average Production Average Depth 

per Well in Gallons. per Well in Feet. 

1895 2,578,996 853 

1896 2,171,922 895 

1 897 1 ,926,292 897 

1898 1,811,672 917 

1899 1.597,495 •; 937 

These figures are again confirmed by the fact that whereas in 
1895 only 2 per cent, of the wells were " deep " ones, i.e., over 
1,400 feet in depth, and gave only 5.4 per cent, of the total out- 
put, in 1899 ^^^^ 10 P^^ cent, of the wells were " deep," and gave 
over 29 per cent, of the total output. 

The conclusion is thus unavoidable that the upper levels of oil- 
strata are becoming exhausted, and that in the future the supply 
of petroleum from the Baku district will depend more and more 
upon deep borings, until these in their turn become exhausted, 
or the extreme depth possible for boring and pumping is reached. 
In other words, the approaching exhaustion of this great oil- 
field is unquestionably foreshadowed, though no man can foretell 
when this point will be reached. I happen to know, by the way, 
that Russian engineers have discovered another oil-field, which 
they believe to be of the highest value, in an entirely different 
district, at a considerable distance from Baku. For certain good 
reasons no particulars concerning this have yet been made public. 
It is also practically a certainty that valuable oil-fields will be 
found in other parts of the Caucasus itself. 

I should say, however, though of course I speak entirely as 
a non-expert, that the above statistics and considerations deserve 
the careful attention of investors in oil-bearing properties at Baku. 



THE OIL-WELLS OF BAKU 227 

From Baku my way now lies across the Caspian Sea, and to 
the wild, world-famous towns of the heart of Asia, once so far 
away that a man could make a reputation by riding to one of 
them, now so intimately connected with the commerce of the 
world that the price of cotton is telegraphed to them every morn- 
ing from Liverpool. 



CENTRAL ASIA 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY: ACROSS CENTRAL 
ASIA BY TRAIN 

NOT many years ago — since a middle-aged man left college, 
in fact — a journey to the heart of Central Asia involved 
several curious preliminaries. First of all, making a will, because 
the chances of your coming back again were slender. Second, 
a perfect colloquial knowledge of at least one Eastern language. 
Third, an Oriental cast of countenance, and much skill in disguis- 
ing it. Fourth, a most unusual love of adventure and stock of 
personal courage. For you were going to places as suspicious 
as Mecca, as hostile to the stranger as Thibet, as fanatical as no- 
where else, and amongst other things you were running the risk 
of a fate unequalled in sheer horror in the whole wide world, 
namely, being eaten alive by vermin trained for the purpose. The 
qualifications mentioned above were possessed by Arminius Vam- 
bery, which accounts for his successful journey and safe return, 
and the fate alluded to was suffered by our countrymen Stoddart 
and Conolly in the forties. 

Nowadays the undertaking is simpler and less perilous. To 
begin with, you apply to the Russian authorities for special per- 
mission to travel in the Trans-Caspian military district. Usually 
they accord it ; if they do not, you don't go. Supposing they do, 
you betake yourself to Baku, by the route you have read about 
here, or some other; you drive down in the evening to the wharf 
of the Caucasus and Mercury Steamship Company — stopping on 
the way, if you have the proper traveller's foresight, to buy a 

thousand cigarettes, a bottle of something for strictly medical 

228 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 



29 



use, and a dozen tins of sardines; you take a ticket for Krasno- 
vodsk, and a perspiring Persian carries your luggage on board 
a sturdy little paddle-boat, built thirty years ago on the Tyne. If 
you are lucky, you travel with the same captain that I did, who 
knows about as much French as you know Russian, but whose 
geniahty is wholly independent of any philological basis; you 
have a jovial little supper with him; you turn into a comfortable 
cabin; and some time after you are asleep the ship paddles out 




The Landing-stage at Krasnovodsk. 



into the blue Caspian, her nose turned toward the rising sun. 
Not much danger so far, and disguise superfluous. 

Eighteen hours is the allotted time for the sea-crossing, and 
in fine weather it is enough. Coming back we took forty, for 
there was a wind and sea that at times made us think it would 
have been safer, after all, to be in old-fashioned Central Asia, to 
say nothing of the man we lost overboard. Going East, however, 
the Caspian was like a pond, and on the crowded decks, with their 
conspicuous division of quarters for *' Men,'' " Women," and 



230 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



" Persians/' happiness reigned, and everybody ate sunflower- 
seeds and brewed tea. The oily reek of Baku was far behind, 
the Caspian was as still as a lake, and at last the little paddle-boat 
turned sharply round a sand-spit and brought into view a hun- 
dred flat white houses, scattered at the foot of converging bare 
brown hills, like a few crystals of sugar at the bottom of a brown 
cup, and we were at Krasnovodsk — " Red Water," though why 
so called I cannot tell, for there is no fresh water there at all, 
except what they produce every day in the big distillery, and the 
sea is a deep Italian blue. 




The Railway Station at Krasnovodsk. 



Here, according to some authorities, in bygone ages the 
mighty Oxus emptied itself into the sea, so that from Peter the 
Great's time till now there has always been a project of bringing 
it back to its old bed. The town is new, for the original starting- 
point of the Trans-Caspian Railway was at Uzun-Ada, further to 
the south, in a bay which proved unsuitable for shipping. Mud- 
brown mountains hem it closely round; not a green leaf or a 
drop of fresh water is in sight, the place is as burnt and dry as 
the inside of a baker's oven. And in November a hot and daz- 
zling sun is still beating down into it! The long, handsome white 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 231 

stone building, of consistent Oriental architecture, is the railway 
station, for Russia lays solidly and artistically the foundation- 
stones of her empire, no matter how remote they may be, and 
there stands the train, all white, ready for its incredible journey. 
The next most conspicuous building is the distillery, which sup- 
plies both the town and the line, and the next is a sort of military 
depot, half barracks and half prison — a halting-place between 
Europe and Asia for soldiers and convicts alike. 

No foreigner, as I have said, lands at Krasnovodsk without 
special permission; Russia watches all strangers on her frontiers 
— and England's — hereabouts. Mine was obtained from St. 
Petersburg through the British Foreign Office before I started. 
The wooden pier was crowded with civilians and porters — Persian 
hamals — and, where the steamer was to touch, a group of uni- 
formed police stood, with a miUtary band behind them. When 
we were within a few yards the music struck up, and as soon as 
the gang-plank was in position the chief of police came aboard, 
and nobody else. The captain awaited him. Were there any for- 
eigners on board? One — myself. My name? An of^cial list 
was produced from a portfolio and consulted. Pazholst! — " If 
you please " — and I was politely invited ashore. In St. Peters- 
burg it is the official pleasure to smile when you speak of special 
permission being necessary for the Trans-Caspian Railway. They 
take it seriously enough at Krasnovodsk. I may add that after 
this original formality — with the single exception of the Chief of 
Police, an army Colonel at Askhabad, who curtly summoned me 
to his ofifice and kept me waiting for an hour and a half, and then 
charged me before all his subordinates with being in Central Asia 
without permission, the fact being that not only had I special per- 
mission but also the highest official letters of personal introduc- 
tion to all the principal authorities — I received the greatest 
possible courtesy and assistance from the Russian officials every- 
where, a courtesy going so far on one occasion as a mounted 
torchlight escort of Cossacks. It is, however, but natural that 



232 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



the Russians should be ready to show what they have done in 
Central Asia. They have every reason to be proud of it. 

On the Trans-Caspian Railway there are two kinds of train — 
the train and the post-train. And the difference between them is 
that the latter has a restaurant-car and the former has not. The 
post-train has an extra passenger-carriage, and the train has sev- 
eral freight-cars, but the speed is the same and the discomfort is 
the same. For what the Russian railway service gives you in extra 
comfort on the magnificent Siberian Express, it takes out of you 
in extra fatigue and dirt on the Trans-Caspian. The train that 

awaited me was the 
post-train and con- 
sisted of five corridor 
carriages, the last be- 
ing a restaurant-car, 
all of them painted 
white. The tender of 
the engine was an oil- 
tank, and behind it, 
on a flat truck, was 
an enormous wooden 
tub, to hold water, 
for in Central Asia 
there is little fuel, and water is the most precious commodity 
that exists. But a glance at the train raised a most painful 
suspicion, which a visit to the ticket office confirmed — there is 
not a first-class carriage on the Trans-Caspian Railway! It was 
not snobbery which evoked one's consternation at this discovery. 
A thousand miles of a slow, hot, dusty journey lay before me, and 
even in European Russia the prospect of a thousand miles in a 
second-class carriage would be far from pleasant, while in Central 
Asia, with ample experience in other lands of what a native crowd 
is, it was appalling. Let me say at once that it more than ful- 
filled all my expectations. The ordinary second-class, too, has 




The Trans- Caspian Train. 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 



'^Z^ 



narrow, flat wooden seats, with thin, hard cushions spread on 
them. After a couple of nights on one of these you are stiff for 
a week. There is a carriage which has stuffed seats, but it is half 
second and half third, and the toilette arrangements are all in the 
third-class half. Moreover, in the stuffed cushions are passengers 
without number who pay no fare. I still wriggle as I think of 
those carriages, for on one never-to-be-forgotten stage I became 
perforce what a recent Act of Parliament calls a " verminous per- 
son." Now, to go unwashed is bad, but to share your washing 
with third-class Russian Asiatic passengers is not only worse — 
it is impossible. Furthermore, while the railway authorities have 
separate third-class carriages for Europeans and natives, the sec- 
ond-class is open to both. Their idea probably was that the higher 
fare would deter the native passenger, but this is far from being 
the case, so prosperous has the sedentary Sart become under Rus- 
sian rule. Therefore your carriage is invaded by a host of natives 
with their innumerable bundles, their water-pots and their tea- 
pots, their curiosity and their expectoration. They do not under- 
stand the unwritten law which reserves to you the seat you have 
once occupied; they dump themselves and their belongings any- 
where, and they are very difficult to detach; they are entirely 
amiable; they follow your every movement for hours with an 
unblinking curiosity; and they smell strong. I hope I have noth« 
ing but good will for my Eastern fellow-man, and I assuredly often 
find him more interesting than people with white skins, but I have 
the greatest objection to passing days and nights crowded close 
with him in an over-heated railway carriage. And if I expatiate 
somewhat upon this minor topic it is because the Trans-Caspian 
railway journey is such a remarkable experience and affords such 
rare and vast interests, that everybody who can afford the time 
and money should take it, and the Russian authorities should do 
all in their power to make the actual travelling as tolerable as 
possible. As things are at present, I should not advise any lady 
to come who is not prepared for some of the most personally 



^34 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

objectionable sides of " roughing it." Prince Hilkoff, however, 
Minister of Railways, is so prompt to make any improvement or 
to inaugurate any new enterprise that if this plaint should meet 
his eye it may well be that no future traveller will have occasion 
to make it. There is also one other little matter which calls for 
attention. Formerly the train at Krasnovodsk waited for the 
steamer from Baku. Now the local railway authority causes it 
to start precisely at three, even if the steamer is coming into 
harbour. So it has happened that the train has started without 
a single passenger, while the wretched people arriving by steamer 
have had to pass twenty-three hours in some railway carriages, 
there being nothing of the nature of a hotel at Krasnovodsk. 
Such an absurdity should be corrected, but the fact that there is 
a railway here at all is so marvellous that every other consideration 
is insignificant beside it. 

There is a strange medley on the platform before we start. 
Crowds of ragged porters, jostling and jabbering in Persian and 
broken Russian, and carrying huge bundles of native luggage 
tied in carpets; a few civilians — merchants and commercial 
travellers; Armenian " drummers,'' sharp and swarthy, for Per- 
sian firms; a score of officers in various uniforms; several soldiers 
sweating in heavy gray overcoats — they badly need a bath — and 
old, patched breeches of red morocco leather; three officers in 
the handsome green and gold of the pogranichnaya strazha, the 
frontier guards, soldiers and customs-of^cers in one; specimens 
of most of the natives of Central Asia; and myself, the only for- 
eigner. There are no fewer than eleven parallel lines of rail, for 
either military purposes or freight accommodation, as may be 
needed. At three o'clock we start, and between the bare brown 
hills and the still blue sea the train runs slowly along for hours. 
It carries, as I said, its oil-fuel, and its water in a huge wooden 
tank on a truck behind the engine, for the country is a desert, 
and the stations are merely the little white houses of the employees, 
appearing as specks in the wilderness. The low indented coast- 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 



235 



line, within a few yards of our right, reminds me of the Mediter- 
ranean coast, between Marseilles and Nice, but here there are in 
every bay thousands of white-breasted ducks. For twenty-five 
miles the line runs across an absolutely barren plain; sunset finds 
us traversing a salty waste, dotted with scanty bushes, and when I 
look out of the window in the middle of the night, a bright moon 
shines on the same desolate scene. But at eight o'clock next 
morning comes a sudden thrill. Over a little station are written 
the magic words '' Geok Tepe," and I rush out to see if anything 
remains to tell of the terrible battle and more terrible slaughter 




Geok Tepe, the Old Ramparts and the New Railway. 

of 1881. Sure enough, on the opposite side of the line, only fifty 
yards away, is the whole story, and luckily the train is accident- 
ally delayed long enough to enable me to make a hasty visit to 
the historic spot. 

It is a rectangular fortress, a thousand yards square, formed 
by a high and thick earthen wall and rampart. The sides are rid- 
dled with bullet-holes — not a square yard is untouched, while 
scores of gaps in the top show where shells have burst. Several 
complete breaches gape wide, and one whole corner is gone — 
that is where the mine exploded, giving both the signal and 
the occasion for the final attack. Here raged for three whole 



236 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

weeks an almost uninterrupted battle, fought by both sides with 
a ferocious courage never surpassed in history; here Skobelef, 
and Kuropatkin under him, won their greatest laurels; here 
Russia became mistress of Trans-Caspia; here died a gallant and 
an interesting race. The Tekke Turkomans first drove back the 
Russian General Lomakin; then they completely routed Lazaref 
at this very spot, and swept in triumph over the whole country. 
For two years Skobelef made his preparations, and on Jan- 
uary I, 1 88 1, he delivered his first attack upon this Turkoman 
stronghold with 8,000 troops and more than fifty guns. Inside 
was the flower of the Turkoman race, with 7,000 women and 
children. Their felt tents were set on fire by petroleum bombs, 
artillery rained shell and shrapnel on them, gradually the trenches 
drew nearer; but they fought with a desperation which kept the 
Russians at bay for three weeks, and on more than one occasion 
they routed the invaders in a hand-to-hand struggle and slashed 
them to death in their own trenches, leaving Russian heads and 
limbs scattered about. But the inevitable end came, and the 
slaughter of every male left in the fortress, and, after it, that ter- 
rible Cossack pursuit of flying men and women for ten miles. 
Opinions differ as to this part of the struggle. What is certain 
is that never since that time has a Turkoman hand been raised 
against Russia, nor ever will be. If you would strike only once, 
and thus be more merciful in the end, you must strike hard, was 
Skobelef's motto in dealing with Orientals, as it has been that 
of all who have understood the Eastern character. Trans-Caspia 
has been as peaceful as paradise since then. But Turkoman brides 
cost few cattle for many years, as all the bridegrooms lay beneath 
Geok Tepe, and the knell of the Turkoman, so hospitable to 
strangers, so terrible in his raids, so devoted to his proud steed, 
so independent and gay in his moving home, was sounded. He 
died as he had lived, and the stone crosses in the gaps in his 
fortress wall tell how many Russians, as fearless as himself, went 
with him where brave dead soldiers go. 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 237 

With a natural desire to perpetuate the memory of their own 
victories, the Russians have built between the railway station and 
the ruins a pretty little museum of white stone. In front of it 
stands a Turkoman cannon, captured by them from the Persians 
in one of their innumerable raids. This has its glorious story, too, 
for though it was mounted on the ramparts of Geok Tepe the 
Turkomans did not know how to use it, and, having captured 
some Russian artillerymen, they ordered them to fire it on their 
own comrades, or be slaughtered on the spot. The Russians loy- 
ally chose death. In the museum are portraits of Skobelef and 
the other commanders, and a collection of Turkoman guns and 
swords — poor tools against artillery and petroleum bombs, throw- 
ing the bravery of these nomad horsemen into still higher relief. 
I ran up the rough earthen steps leading to the shattered ram- 
parts and looked through them at the busy station, the white train, 
and the groups of officers strolling up and down the platform. It 
was the advance of Russia at a glance. 



For some time now we have had the mountains to our right, 
and the country has become more populated, though the herbage 
is still thin, and long strings of camels wind across the plain. The 
Turkoman mud houses are hardly visible, but the villages of 
Khirghiz kibitkas, round felt tents, make picturesque groups. 
There is neither cutting nor embankment, the line being simply 
laid upon the surface of the plain. When General Annenkof was 
building it, with almost superhuman energy and a confident en- 
thusiasm which events have more than justified, everything re- 
quired — rails, sleepers, men, food, water, protection — had to be 
moved forward by a train always following the railhead. Even 
to-day a large proportion of the stopping-places are just stations, 
and nothing else — a house, a storehouse embedded in the 
ground as a protection against both heat and cold, a well, built 
round with sloping stones and planted around with trees — the 



238 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

only trees in the landscape, a few shaggy black cattle, and 
often, too, a little unfenced cemetery in the open desert, with 
half a dozen wooden crosses to mark its site. The station-master 
and his family who live in these houses have no nearer neigh- 
bours than their fellow-officials at the stations on either side 
of them, and no connection with the world except by the one 
passenger train daily in each direction, whose arrival is the 
chief daily event at every place. At Askhabad, the administra- 
tive centre of Trans-Caspia, where we arrived an hour and a 
half after leaving Geok Tepe, a military band played us in, a 
crowd was waiting on the platform, and an officer of gendarmes, 
recognising me as a foreigner, became anxious and made many 
pointed inquiries. East and West mingled here in curious 
fashion — elegant ladies escorted by smart officers, alongside big 
Turkomans in mulberry-coloured dressing-gowns and enormous 
hats of shaggy black sheepskin, their bare feet thrust into thick 
leather shoes. 

From Askhabad a carriage road of one hundred and seventy 
miles runs across the Persian frontier to Meshed, a town of the 
greatest interest to the two rival nations of Asia. It has a flourish- 
ing trade with Russia, Afghanistan, and thence with India and 
Bokhara. After Mecca and Kerbela (near Baghdad) it is the 
holiest goal of Moslem pilgrims, of whom 100,000 are said to 
visit the tomb of the imam Reza every year. The Persian schis- 
matic Mohammedans have their headquarters there in a mosque 
whose doors are studded with rubies, and whose library contains 
over a thousand Korans. But far more important than either 
commerce or creed. Meshed " the Holy " is only one hundred 
and ninety-five miles from Herat as the crow flies, and a road 
two hundred and thirty miles long connects the prosperous Per- 
sian town and the Afghan fortress supposed to be the key to the 
invasion of India. Therefore Russia and England keep very 
active rival intelligence departments there and struggle diplo- 
matically for influence. The proximity of Meshed has perhaps 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 



239 



something to do with the fact that Askhabad is the mihtary cen- 
tre of this part of Russian Central Asia, with a garrison of 10,000 
men and stores of every kind on a war footing. A few years ago 
the tea and indigo of India used to supply Central Asia from 
this centre, but when Russia became paramount here her first 
care was to destroy British trade by excessive duties and even 
direct prohibition, and in this task she has been only too suc- 
cessful. 

After Askhabad the desert once more, till at last cultivated, 
irrigated land appears, and at each little station is a great heap 
of bales of cotton, for the harvest has just been gathered, await- 
ing transport. It has come for the most part on camels, and 
while their owners chat these are tethered in a quaint manner, 
tied nose and tail in a vicious circle, so that each is fast between 
two others. Midway in the burnt plain is a magnificent old fort- 
ress, its good preservation teUing how few years have passed 
since these same plains held the wild life of immemorial time. 
A belt of fertile land extends for fifteen miles from these moun- 
tains to the south, deliciously green in spring, but now only cov- 
ered with dwarfed scrub — tamarisk, I think. In summer the heat 
is terrible, rising to 155° at midday, and even now, in mid- 
November, one is glad to get out of the sun. 

At nine o'clock at night and 556 miles from our starting- 
point, another sensation. Most readers will remember how 
the word '' Merv " once rang through England, thanks to 
O'Donovan and Marvin and Vambery, as the possible cause 
of war with Russia, whose absorption of Central Asia brought 
her here in 1884 — just a year before Parliament, at Glad- 
stone's behest, voted £11,000,000 of war-money at a sitting 
in view of Russia's next step south; how the fears of some peo- 
ple that Russia meant to seize it, and beyond it, all Central Asia, 
gave rise to the sarcastic adjective" mervousness "; how Russia 
assured us that she did not mean to take it; how she took it 
soon afterwards; and how she built from it a line with no other 



240 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

possible object but, should need arise, to hurry troops toward 
India. Well, the train slackens speed on the second evening, 
draws up to a long platform full of brilliant uniforms whose 
wearers are escorting elegant ladies, while a band strikes up a 
gay tune, and your window stops exactly opposite the word 
** Merv " over the central doorway. You cannot quite beUeve 
it. But it is a fact, for the whole oasis of Merv, one of the most 
fertile spots in the world, is as Russian as Riga, and when 
you say " Merv " in Central Asia you mean a long, low, neat 
stone railway station, lit by a score of bright lamps in a row, 
where the train changes engines, while in a busy telegraph office 
a dozen operators sit before their clicking instruments; and if 
you are a Russian officer or official you mean also a brand-new 
town where a pestilent malarial fever is sure to catch you sooner 
or later, and very likely to kill you. 

But Merv has long ceased to be a Russian boundary, for in 
the dark you can see a branch line of railway stealing south- 
ward across the plain. This is the famous Murghab Branch, the 
strategical line of one hundred and ninety miles along the river 
to the place the Russians call Kushkinski Post, close to the 
frontier of Afghanistan, a short distance from Kushk itself and 
only eighty miles from Herat.* The Russians keep this line 
absolutely secret, no permission to travel by it having ever been 
granted to a foreigner. My own permission for Central Asia 
read, '' With the exception of the Murghab Branch." 

This line is purely strategic and military. Neither trade nor 
agriculture is served by it; nor would anybody ever buy a ticket 
by it, if it were open to all the world, as it may be before long. 
Moreover, it runs through such a fever-haunted district that Rus- 
sian carpenters, who can earn two roubles a day on it, throw up 
the job and go back to earn fifty kopecks at home. The line is 

* This line has since been prolonged a few miles to Chahel Dokhteran, on the very 
frontier, and a branch is building through Penjdeh to Maruchak, where the Murghab 
River crosses the frontier. 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 241 

simply a deliberate military measure against Great Britain. It 
serves at present only the purpose of facilitating the invasion of 
India, or rather of enabling Russia to squeeze England by pre- 
tending to prepare the first steps of an invasion of India, when- 
ever such a pretence may facilitate her diplomacy in Europe. 
In simple truth, it places Herat at her mercy. The Merv-Kushk 
line, I may add, is now completed, and two regular trains a week 
run over it, at the rate of something less than ten miles an 
hour, reaching the Afghan frontier terminus in eighteen hours. 




A Glass of Tea While the Train Stops. 

The country on both sides of it is a desert, with tufts of hardy 
scrub. Wild pig abound, and pheasants, of which this country 
is the original home. The fever I have spoken of attacks a 
man suddenly, the spleen swells, he turns as yellow as in jaun- 
dice, becomes unconscious on the second day, and then recovers 
or dies. Those working on the railway say that recovery de- 
pends upon whether there is a train immediately after the attack 
to take you to the hospital at Merv. If you have just missed 
the bi-weekly train, you die. But the epidemic will doubtless 



242 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

diminish in frequency and in virulence as there is less necessity 
to dig up the ground. In the East — even at Hong-Kong, for 
instance — stirring of the soil almost always produces illness. 
Armenians, the pioneers of trade in this part of the world, are 
trying to open up trade at Kushk Post, but hitherto with little 
success. From the Russian post the Afghan frontier is visible, 
and the Russian sentries can be discerned with the naked eye. 
There is one line of them on the top ridge of the hills, and an- 
other upon the slope beyond. Beyond these are the Afghan 
posts. 

Kushkinski Post itself consists of about a score of houses, 
with something like fifty white inhabitants, apart from soldiers. 
There are no white women in the settlement, and nothing like a 
hotel. The officers have established a little military club, where 
they take their meals. During the great heat of summer, ice, or 
rather snow, is brought regularly by train. At first the only 
fortification, I was told, consisted of a series of detached ram- 
parts, within which the artillery was quartered. The infantry 
and Cossack barracks, and the officers' quarters — little grey one- 
story houses — are in the town. A temporary line of rails, how- 
ever, had been laid down from the main line to convey material 
for building a second fort, on the right of the terminus, and two 
hundred labourers had been brought — which meant that the gar- 
rison was to be increased. There is also a considerable railway 
workshop, and a depot, where presumably rails, etc., are kept 
in readiness for a hasty prolongation of the line — precisely as is 
the case at our own terminus on the Indian frontier. I read, by 
the way, in a recent work, that the relations of the Russians 
and the Afghans are very friendly. The contrary is the case. 
Russians described the Afghans to me as '' very dangerous,** 
and told me that it had happened more than once that Russian 
officers out shooting had accidentally crossed the boundary and 
been pursued by armed Afghans. The Afghan posts let nobody 
pass, and no trade, and there is no custom-house of any kind. 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 243 

Altogether, this particular Russian outpost of Empire must be 
about as disagreeable a place of exile as can be imagined — which 
is precisely what officers who have been stationed there say about 
it. Of course, I did not myself see any of the things I have men- 
tioned, but they were matters of common conversation with my 
acquaintances in the train. 

Most interesting of all, however, as one stands here on the edge 
of the platform and looks down the few hundred yards of this mys- 
terious Merv-Kushk line visible in the dark, is to reflect that if the 
future brings war between England and Russia its roaring tide 
will flow over these very rails for the invasion of India, and that 
if it brings peace this will be a station on the through line be- 
tween Calais and Kandahar. Some day surely, though it may 
be long, long hence, and only when tens of thousands of Rus- 
sian and British soldier-ghosts are wandering through the shades 
of Walhalla, the traveller from London will hear on this very plat- 
form the cry, '' Change here for Calcutta! " 



For some time after Merv the train passes through this world- 
famed oasis, then for more than fifty miles it traverses the heart- 
breaking desert of sand. Central Asia, in fact, as one views it. 
from the train, is a desert broken by oases. Where a river de- 
scends from the mountains on the south, and is caught and meas- 
ured and allotted and distributed till it sometimes disappears al- 
together in the sands, there is fertility — luxurious vegetations 
and enormous crops, such fertility, indeed, as hardly exists else- 
where. The moment the irrigated area is passed, the burnt 
desert begins again, where nothing grows but stunted tamarisk 
and the prickly camel's thorn — indeed, for hour after hour one 
often sees not even these poor struggles after plant life. Here, 
on either side, as far as the eye reaches, is a yellow plain of ribbed 
sand. The earth has surely nothing more dreary to show, and 
it is dangerous, too, for the wind blows it up and over the track, 



244 ALL THE RUSSL4S 

and at the best, companies of men must sweep it away, while at 
the worst it chokes the locomotive and brings the train to a stand- 
still. Sometimes the whole service of the railway is suspended 
by such a wind. The only help is found in the saxaul, a stunted, 
gnarled bush whose twisted roots bind the sand together as 
osiers bind mud. This being so, I was astonished to see that the 




A Mystery in Trans-Caspia— Turkomans Examining the Train. 

fuel in the stoves of the train was heaps of tangled saxaul roots 
and branches. 

By and by vegetation begins again — timidly at first, but soon 
luxuriously, for we are on the edge of the most wonderful river 
in the world, not excepting the Nile. At the station which now 
bears the name of the river, Amu Darya, but used to be called 
Charjui, one hundred and fifty miles beyond Merv, we halt for 
twenty-five minutes, and then creep forward at a snail's pace. 
At first by close-packed mud-houses, deep in tropical vegeta- 
tion, then out upon a wooden bridge over long mud flats, then, 
barely moving at all, over the Amu Darya — the mighty and im- 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 245 

mortal Oxus itself. The bridge is a narrow, low way, upon tres- 
tles and piles, but it is one of the engineering wonders of the 
world, for it is a mile and three-quarters long, the river runs fast 
over its deep mud, and every balk of timber — there are 3,300 
piles in the river-bed alone — had to be brought from Russia 
down the Volga and then transported these seven hundred miles 
by rail. It is as dry as tinder, for rain is almost unknown here. 
Every quarter of a mile there is a fire station, with a great cis- 
tern of water and buckets, over which stands a sentry with fixed 
bayonet. Fire is the nightmare of the guardians of the bridge, 
but though I am not of a nervous temperament I must confess 
I was much more afraid of water — the dashing, swirling, coffee- 
coloured water below, between us and which was such a narrow, 
slender support of twelve-years' old wood, every single timber 
creaking against its neighbour in a sickening fashion. Without 
exaggeration, I should not have been surprised if the whole thing 
had collapsed in an instant, and I was glad to see the solid ground 
underneath once more. The authorities seem to share this fear, 
for our speed was the slowest at which the engine could move at 
all. And in spite of the great cost and the emptiness of the Rus- 
sian official pocket just now they are working with utmost speed 
upon a new bridge a quarter of a mile to the north. A number 
of huge iron cylindrical piers are in place, a dozen engines are 
puffing, huge heaps of dressed stones and timbers lie about, and 
an army of men is at work. 

I saw this scene for the first time at sunrise, and I count that 
among the most impressive moments of my Hfe. These waters 
rise mysteriously in the " Roof of the World"; for 1,500 miles 
they roll through the land which has been the scene of the most 
marvellous human episodes; they were looked upon by the first 
of mankind, for the cradle of our race was there, and they have 
qualified the schemes of many of the greatest; the legions of Al- 
exander and Genghiz Khan and Tamerlane drank at them; we 
hear of them at the beginning of Genesis, and they may well yet 



a46 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

be one of the pathways of the last great war of human history. 
The railway jars sadly upon one's thoughts of such a scene. One 
feels vulgar to pass through the heart of Asia, the mother of peo- 
ples, to the accompaniment of the restaurant-car and the conduc- 
tor's whistle. The Turkoman, silent in his dignity, wrapped in 
reserve as in his flowing garments, looking upon the invading 
stranger and his iron modernities with inscrutable eyes — it is with 
him, and like him, that one would wish to journey here, and learn 
and wonder. Most welcome, therefore, comes the recollection of 
Matthew Arnold's noble lines upon these immemorial waters: 

But the majestic river floated on, 

Out of the mist and hum of that low land, 

Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, 

Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste, 

Under the solitary moon ; — he flow'd 

Right for the polar star, past Orgunje,* 

Brimming, and bright, and large ; then sands begin 

To hem his watery march, and dam his streams. 

And split his currents ; that for many a league 

The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along 

Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles — 

Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had 

In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere, 

A foil'd circuitous wanderer — till at last 

The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide 

His luminous home of waters opens, bright 

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars 

Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. t 

By breakfast time we are running amid houses and fields and 
trees, with dignified Bokharans on horseback everywhere in sight. 
And now the great names of Asia follow fast. Seventy miles be- 
yond the Oxus, and seven hundred and eighty altogether, bring 
us to Bokhara. A neat, stone-built station like Merv, but larger, 
a long row of droschkies outside, and a little town of new white 
houses — that is all the passing traveller sees. The old Bokhara, 

* Khiva. t " Sohrab and Rustum." 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 247 

" the noble," the seat of the learning of Asia nearly a thousand 
years ago, and always the home of its most savage bigotry, the 
city with a connected history of more than twelve hundred years, 
is eight miles away in the fertile land, while the station itself is 
in the desert. When they brought the railway the Russians were 
still afraid of the fanatical Bokharans; now they wish they had 
run their line past the very gates of the city. On the platform 
a native barber is rapidly shaving heads with a huge hatchet- 
shaped razor. A woman completely hidden in a dark blue gar- 
ment sits with her face to the wall, while her husband arranges 
cushions and washes grapes, and then they proceed to a breakfast 
of fruit and flapjacks. The Turkoman head-dress of shaggy 
sheepskin has wholly disappeared, and in place of it there are big 
burly Bokharans in enormous white turbans and khalats of 
flowered and striped cotton over their tunics, their feet in elegant 
green-heeled morocco boots, and these tucked into a couple of 
pairs of slippers, one over the other. They crowd into the train 
the moment it stops, mostly into the second-class (remember 
there is no first-class), and make themselves very much at home. 
All their belongings come in with them, packed — including, in 
every case, a long-necked copper water-bottle — in a pair of car- 
pet saddle-bags slung over their shoulder. The native passen- 
gers leave the train, and, squatting down a few yards beyond the 
track, perform their ceremonial ablutions and pray toward Mecca. 
Then they go over to the melon-sellers and return with an enor- 
mous water-melon to make a piccaninny gape with envy, and this 
they proceed to eat in the carriage. These people have never 
been crushed like the Turkomans; their independence is still 
nominally preserved to them, for their own Amir can have their 
throats cut in the bazaar at his pleasure, and their looks and 
actions are therefore those of free men. They behave, in fact, as 
if the train belonged to them, and the unfortunate foreigner is 
crushed in his corner — if he has been lucky enough to keep a 
corner — by mere weight of humanity. 



248 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

The flocks of sheep and goats are the most striking feature 
of the landscape as we proceed, and among the latter are huge 
billy-goats, as big as a pony and twice as thick, with horns a yard 
long tossing over them. Then come the first really cultivated 
fields we have seen, surrounded by low mud walls, some under 
water and all cleverly irrigated, with winter rice or corn just 
coming up. After a while the water-supply stops — not a blade 
can be grown in this country without irrigation, therefore the 
water-supply is subject to the most rigorous supervision and 
scrupulous distribution, what Matthew Arnold calls " the shorn 
and parcell'd Oxus," in a line as remarkable for its exact accu- 
racy as for its perfect music — the desert regains its sway, and for 
hours we pass over an absolutely flat plain, unbroken at an 
horizon, without a living thing upon it but tufts of coarse grass. 
a few inches high. Then gradually signs of the neighbourhood 
of a river reappear, willows and alders and big trees like maples, 
irrigation channels, planted fields, winter crops just green above 
the surface. Ruined strongholds, similar to those one sees in 
the Balkans, where a whole village had to be ready to run for 
safety against Turkish marauders, tell their own tale of the rich 
life hereabouts and the state of society in years long past. Some 
of these little castles are now inhabited by villagers, and some 
are in almost perfect preservation, walls, gates, towers, cren- 
elated battlements and all. At half-past seven, nine hours after 
leaving Bokhara, and 934 miles from the Caspian, the train stops, 
and opposite my window is the magic name '' Samarkand," red- 
olent of the East and its roses, the city which Tamerlane made 
the Asiatic Athens, alike for the renown of its learning and the 
magnificence of its monuments. A glimpse of a wooden town 
in a park of verdure, a twenty minutes' halt, a capital meal in 
the restaurant, and we are off again. Of course, I lingered in 
these famous cities on my return — now I go straight through. 
Five hours later we are at the junction of Chernayevo, where 
the line divides, one branch going northward to Tashkent, the 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 249 

other continuing eastward to Andijan, in the heart of the cot- 
ton country. At last, sixty-six hours and 1,153 miles from 
Krasnovodsk, the train stops for good, in the heart of Asia, at 
the large, handsome station of Tashkent, the administrative cen- 
tre of Turkestan and the residence of the Governor-General of 
the whole Trans-Caspian region. 

The following condensed time-table will show the reader this 
journey — the most remarkable train-journey in the world — at a 
glance : 

MILES. STATION. HOUR OF ARRIVAU 

Krasnovodsk (departure) 3.00 p.m. 

208 Kizil-Arvat 2.36 A.M. 

343 Askhabad 9-45 a.m. 

556 Merv 9.10 P.M. 

574 Bairam-Ali 10.25 P.M. 

706 Amu-Darya (Charjui) S'^7 a.m. 

780 Bokhara 10.04 a.m. 

886 Katti-Kurgan .- 440 p.m. 

934 Samarkand 7.30 P.M. 

1005 Jisak 11.40 P.M. 

1059 Chernayevo 2.55 a.m. 

1153 Tashkent 8.40 a.m. 

1059 Chernayevo (departure) 4.00 a.m. 

1 108 Khodjent 6.45 a.m. 

1 177 Kokand 10.55 a.m. 

1226 Margelan 2.19 p.m. 

1261 Andijan 5.15 p.m. 

The principal stations are thus sixteen, but the total num- 
ber of stations is ninety-six — seventy-seven to the junction of 
Chernayevo, five to Tashkent on the northern branch, and four- 
teen to Andijan on the eastern branch. The total length of the 
railway, including both branches, is 2,053 versts — 1,355 miles — 
and the average speed, from Krasnovodsk, the starting-point on 
the Caspian, to Tashkent, the northern terminus, including all 
stoppages, is seventeen and one-half miles an hour. But ex- 



a^o 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



eluding the eight scheduled stops, amounting to two hours and 
twenty-five minutes, and allowing three minutes at each of the 
other stations, the actual average speed while running works out 
at over twenty miles an hour — a highly creditable performance 
and much superior to that of the Trans-Siberian Railway. 

Merely as a railway the Trans-Caspian is in no way extraor- 
dinary. Except for the absence of labour, timber, and water, 
which necessitated a rolling camp following upon the heels of 
the working party, and the passage of the sand desert, it pre- 




Bread-sellers at a Station. 



sented no difficulties, and the only engineering exploit is the 
bridge over the Oxus. But, as I said at the beginning, the as- 
tounding fact is that it is here at all. It was begun on June 30, 
1885; Merv was reached in July, 1886; the Amu-Darya, in 
June, 1887; the bridge, 4,600 yards long, was opened for traffic 
in January, 1888; Samarkand reached in May, 1888; and Tash- 
kent soon afterward. Thus twenty years ago it was not thought 
of as it exists to-day; the notion of it was even strenuously repu- 
diated by Russian statesmen when England grew nervous about 
their intentions. Twenty-five years ago Samarkand and Tash- 



THE TRANS-CASPIAN RAILWAY 1^1, 

kent were only to be reached by adventurous travellers carry- 
ing their lives in their hands; Bokhara was as dangerous and as 
inaccessible as the capital of Thibet is to-day; Andijan was un- 
heard of; England would not have tolerated for a moment the 
idea of the absorption of all Central Asia by Russia. Now Rus- 
sia has it all — for ever, beyond the possibility of internal revolt or 
external attack; you ''book" to Kokand as easily as to Kent 
or Kentucky; you are as safe there as in Calcutta or Colorado; 
the railway has brought Russian troops once more close to the 
frontier of China, and actually to the frontier of Afghanistan; 
most wonderful of all, this line, planned and carried out as a 
purely military work, is already paying its way handsomely, and 
has been transferred from military to civil administrators. And 
it has brought peace and commerce and civilisation, as Russia 
understands the word, to a vast region where so few years ago 
utter barbarism reigned. The military advantages it confers are 
too great and too conspicuous to call for mention. It is a dar- 
ing enterprise, magnificently executed. Physical difficulties and 
diplomatic obstacles have been alike overcome or disregarded. 
Moreover, it is but the beginning of what is to be in this part of 
the world. No thoughtful foreigner can make the journey with- 
out conceiving a profound admiration of Russia's courage and 
a profound respect for her powers. Russians have every right 
to be proud of their Trans-Caspian conquest and its symbol, 
the railway; for the rest of the world it is half-a-dozen object- 
lessons in one. 



CHAPTER XVII 

RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA 

THE railway which Russia has pushed forward through the 
region of tropic heat, has worked a revolution not less than 
that which she has thrust across the region of Arctic cold. Indeed 
the Trans-Caspian Railway has accomplished more than the 
Trans-Siberian, for whereas the remotest districts of Siberia have 
been accessible for generations to anybody who had time and 
endurance enough to undertake a journey of many weeks in 
tarantass or sleigh. Central Asia a few years ago was hermetically 
sealed except to the courageous few who, knowing the languages, 
were prepared to penetrate it in disguise, at the risk of torture 
and death, beyond the reach of any possible succour or rescu'e in 
case of mishap. Moreover, in Siberia, there was always river 
transport in summer, slow, but cheap and safe; in Central Asia 
the camel was the only carrier. Therefore the Trans-Caspian 
railway was destined by nature to have a revolutionary effect, 
and this has been even more than was foreseen. Not to burden 
these pages with figures, I may say that in 1885, two years be- 
fore the railway reached Samarkand, the total imports and 
exports of the province of Turkestan amounted to 40,475 tons^ 
while in 1896, after the railway had been in operation eight 
years, they had risen to 159,229 tons, and the increase is pro- 
ceeding rapidly and steadily. In 1897, the district of Andijan 
alone exported 19,000 tons of cotton, and along the eastern 
portion of the line I saw acres and acres of bales awaiting ship- 
ment, while everywhere I heard complaints of the insufficiency 
of rolling stock to meet the demands of growers. Yet the line 
itself is laid as in Russia, except for the first hundred miles. 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA 255 

where the rails are the old light ones originally laid to Uzun- 
Ada; the roadway is solidly ballasted; and the speed, as I 
have shown, is good. The income from freight and passengers 
is not yet enough, of course, to pay interest on the whole 
capital expenditure, but it more than pays all working ex- 
penses, and for the rest Russia has the enormous strategical 
advantages 'it gives her, and the certainty that the pecuniary re- 
turns will be greater every year. The gross receipts for 1899 
were £590 — say $3,000 — per mile, and the total movement of 
freight 376,000 tons. 

Russia is not satisfied, however, with the brilliant results she 
has achieved — British trade, once so flourishing, driven from Cen- 
tral Asia; a great domestic trade created; Trans-Caspia, Bokhara, 
Turkestan closely connected with European Russia; a railway 
station placed upon the Afghan frontier; and the rich province 
of Khorassan as good as annexed. As usual, it is a supposed 
strategic necessity that is urging her on. At present, in the eyes 
of her strategists, the Trans-Caspian is an isolated railway. It 
depends upon the military district of the Caucasus alone. If a 
Russian army is ever required in Central Asia — a possibility which 
every Russian strategist feels compelled to contemplate — it will 
be a great one, it will demand vast quantities of supplies behind it, 
and both men and materiel will be wanted quickly. Taking Mos- 
cow or Warsaw as the military centre of Russia, this movement 
would have to take place, as things are now, by the rail route 
of Rostof, Vladikavkaz, Petrofsk, Baku, thence across the Cas- 
pian, and another seven or eight hundred miles to where the 
troops were wanted — a long and costly journey, and without 
suf^cient steamer accommodation on the Caspian Sea. By rail 
to Samara or Saratof, and thence down the Volga and across the 
Caspian to Baku, would be even longer in point of time. Why 
does Russia think her troops must be more quickly moved than 
either of these two routes would allow? She knows that she was 
no invasion from India to fear, and that, whether her forces were 



0.^6 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



gathered quickly or slowly, they would find the same military 
concentration awaiting them on the Indian frontier or in Afghan- 
istan. 

The explanation is simple, and has recently been put forward 
in an almost semi-ofificial manner in Russia.* It is an absolutely 
determined part of her poHcy to have an outlet on the Persian 
Gulf — to carry her southwestern frontier to the warm water. f 
With her present railway system, however, she does not feel 
strong enough to meet the opposition that this step — practically 
the annexation of Persia — might provoke. The definite project 

* See TAe Shortest Railway Route frotn Central Europe to Central Asia (St. Peters- 
burg, 1899) and R. E. C. Long, " Russian Railway Policy in Asia," Fortnightly Re- 
view, December, 1899. 

t It may be remarked that Russian writers have been for some time urging upon 
the Russian Government the necessity of pushing a railway to the Indian Ocean with- 
out delay. For instance, Professor Hermann Brunnhofer, of St. Petersburg, in a 
volume of essays called "Russia's Hand over Asia," published three years ago, 
advocated the seizure of the little Persian seaport of Bender Jesseh, near Ormuz, as 
an offset to the expected British occupation of Bender Abbas. He wrote : 

" Bender Jesseh is, so to speak, the Russian Vladivostok on the Indian Ocean. If 
W^estern Siberia and Central Asia are not to be excluded from the great trade of the 
world in future, they must endeavour to come into direct communication with the 
Indian Ocean. Gigantic as the advantages are which the Siberian Railway will confer 
on the Russian Empire, it will in the future not be able to meet the still more gigantic 
demands which will be made upon it by international traffic, the produce of Russo- 
Siberian and Chinese soil, the industries, and the civil and military administrations. 
A second Pacific railway through Siberia, analogous to the three Pacific railways 
running through North America, is absolutely impossible. If Russia, therefore, 
wishes to, and will, safeguard the future, the centre of her Empire — viz.. Western 
Siberia and Central Asia — she must, in the first instance, keep open the access to the 
Indian Ocean. The railway to Bender Jesseh will probably start from Askhabad, 
south-east, via Kotchan, to Meshed and Herat ; then curve westward to Birjand, 
cross the terrible Lut Desert, and reach Kerman. From here it will run to Bender 
Jesseh, after overcoming considerable difficulties. The harbour of this commercial 
town is good, and only open to south-east winds. The anchorage is five metres deep 
at one and one-half kilometres distance from the shore, and eight metres deep at three 
kilometres distance. Bender Jesseh is connected by a regular weekly steamship 
service with Kurachi and Bombay on the east, and with Bushire and Busra on the 
west." 

This railway, he added, would have its greatest value in rendering Russia 
"entirely independent of the Dardanelles and the Suez Canal." And in this connec- 
tion it is a curious fact that Suez Canal shares fell when the concession for the 
Baghdad railway was announced. 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA 257 

of such a railway would (unless a preliminary agreement had 
been reached), precipitate hostile action by England; it would in 
all probability cause a Mohammedan rising; like the Trans-Cas- 
pian, the railway would be isolated from Europe, and moreover 
it would be open to military attack from Egypt and India. Most 
important consideration of all, Germany stands possessed de jure 
of the right of which Russia is hurrying to become possessed 
de facto, namely, to build a railway connecting the present Eu- 
ropean system with the Persian Gulf. Russia's fear is intense, 
therefore, that Germany, or England and Germany in co-opera- 
tion, will create direct transit between Europe and India, and 
will do this before she herself is in a position either to prevent it 
or to offer an alternative. For the Russian view is that the trade 
of the world is insufBcient to support two railway connections be- 
tween Europe and India, and that therefore whenever one such 
connection is made, any other becomes impossible. And this 
connection Russia has always been determined to have for her- 
self. The answer to the above question, therefore, is this: Rus- 
sia is extremely anxious to extend her railway system in Central 
Asia, (i) to bring her military centres into direct connection with 
the Afghan and Persian frontiers, in view of possible hostilities 
with England; (2) to secure for herself the future railway trade- 
route between Europe and India, by offering a shorter and 
cheaper line before the alternative route via Baghdad is con- 
structed; (3) by thus rendering the construction of this latter 
railway an unprofitable undertaking, to remove the one fatal 
obstacle to an ultimate port for herself upon the Persian Gulf; 
(4) to develop further her own Central Asian territories. From 
a Russian point of view the reasons are certainly convincing. 

The German project is so important, in itself, as affecting the 
future of Russia in Central Asia, and as possibly compromising 
gravely the relations between the two Empires, that all students 
of foreign affairs are watching its development with great atten- 
tion, and I may pause a moment here to give a brief account of it. 



258 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

From the time of the Armenian massacres, when Germany 
so conspicuously declined to join in any coercive measures, the 
relations of the Kaiser and the Sultan have grown steadily more 
intimate, as exhibited during the war with Greece, and in the 
former's triumphal visits to Constantinople and Jerusalem. The 
climax — assuredly foreseen and planned — came in.the signature, 
in December, 1899, of the concession to a German company of 
the right to build a railway across Asia Minor to Baghdad, with 
an obvious ultimate terminus in the great harbour of Koweit, at 
the head of the Persian Gulf. The Russian Ambassador had 
moved heaven and earth to prevent this concession being given 
to Germany, and a British syndicate had even offered to con- 
struct the line without any State guarantee at all. But so power- 
ful was the combination of Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, the 
German Ambassador in Constantinople, and Dr. von Siemens, 
the director of the Deutsche Bank, that they not only obtained 
the concession but also in it an undertaking from the Turkish 
Government to pay to the Company a kilometrical guarantee or 
subsidy of £1,000 per mile per annum — that is, a yearly payment 
in all of £240,000 — $1,200,000! This is the most striking diplo- 
matic success of modern times, and the rebuff to Russia is, of 
course, proportionate to the triumph of Germany. I say nothing 
of the rebuff to England; the conduct of our foreign affairs of 
late has accustomed us to rebuffs. But it is worthy of remark 
that the final struggle for this great concession was taking place 
in Constantinople at the precise time when the Kaiser was in 
England and when the first startling disaster of the Boer War 
had just occurred. 

The proposed railway is an extension of the line rapidly 
built and well worked by Germany, from Haidar-Pasha, on the 
Bosphorus (where a German company has just been formed, with 
the Sultan's approval, to develop a harbour), via Ismid, Eskishehr, 
and Afiun kara-hissar, to KtDnia. The new line will proceed 
southward to Kerman, at the foot of the Taurus Mountains, then 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA 259 

skirt this range northeastward to Eregli, cross it by the famous 
pass to Adana (whence there is already a short EngUsh line to 
the Mediterranean), and proceed to Tell-ha-besh (with a branch 
to Aleppo), bridging the Euphrates at Europus, and via Mosul 
(near Nineveh), Tekrit, and Beled (with a branch to Khannikin, 
on the Persian* frontier, whence a line might profitably be run 
via Kermanshahan, Aamadan, and Kum, to Tehran) to Baghdad. 
Thence the line will continue via Kerbela, Nedjef, and Busra, to 
Kozima, at the head of the magnificent harbour of Koweit, where 
there is to be a German naval coaling-station — four days' steam 
from Bombay ! To bring this railway into connection with Eu- 
ropean lines the Bosphorus is to be spanned by a bridge grate- 
fully named after the present Sultan, and a recent well-informed 
anonymous writer calculates that Kozima will be reached in three 
and a half days from Constantinople, and ten days from Berlin. 
The length of the new railway will be 1,750 miles, and accord- 
ing to the concession it is to be finished by 1907. But although 
the concession was signed two years ago, the first shovelful 
of earth has yet to be lifted — and for the very good reason that 
Turkey is utterly unable to pay the guarantee she has promised 
unless she is permitted by the Powers to increase her import 
duties from eight to eleven per cent., which, backed of course 
by Germany, she is now desirous of doing. But England has the 
preponderant share of Turkish trade, and therefore for her to 
consent to burden her trade in order that Germany may build 
a railway to rob her of an important trade-route is, as has been 
said, like asking her to contribute to the cost of the razor for 
cutting her own throat. 

The harbour of Koweit has just enjoyed a period of con- 
siderable diplomatic and naval prominence, unquestionably in 
connection with the development of the German scheme. In 
January, 1900, it was visited by a German mission, accompanied 
by the German Consul-General in Constantinople and several 
engineers, including the chief engineer of the Baghdad Rail- 



26o ALL THE RUSSIAS 

way. This mission requested the Sheikh of Koweit, Mubarek 
el Sabbah, in the name of the Sultan of Turkey, to cede to Ger- 
many the village of Kadne, on the northern shore of the Ko- 
weit inlet. The Sheikh declined to do so. Next, a Turkish 
force of 3,000 men was collected at Busra, where Izzet Bey, 
said to be one of the Sultan's chief advisers upon Arabian af- 
fairs, had been spending- several months, and in August last 
the Turkish corvette Sehab arrived at Koweit with some of 
this force on board, to occupy the place — a previous attempt 
to smash Mubarek through his enemy Ibn el Rashid, Emir of 
Nejd, having failed. But when the Sehab reached Koweit she 
found a British gunboat already there, the commander of 
which prohibited her from landing troops, and a British naval 
force was promptly concentrated in the Gulf. In view of the 
relations of Turkey and Germany one need not be unduly sus- 
picious to suppose that if the Sultan had succeeded in occupy- 
ing Koweit, its cession to Germany would have been the next 
step. Those who have a taste for such things will greatly en- 
joy the following comment of the Kolnische Zeitung upon the 
incident : 

'' In the political sphere the Koweit question threatens to 
assume a certain importance. It is naturally not in the inter- 
est of Turkey, nor in that of those who will build and work 
the railway, that the terminus, the excellent harbour of Koweit, 
on the shores of which Kozima lies, should be alienated from 
the immediate sovereignty of Turkey. The ' Salnameh,' the 
Turkish statistical annual, regularly registers Koweit as 
' Kaasa ' and its Sheikh as a Kaimakam. This clearly shows 
that Koweit is accounted Turkish territory, although the exer- 
cise of sovereign rights had been ceded to the Sheikh for the 
time being. The question of the form in which the State 
should exercise its sovereignty may best be left to itself. The 
fact that Koweit belongs to Turkey cannot be impugned, and 
English atlases have till now exhibited no dubiety on this point. 




RAILWAY EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA, 



i 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA 261 

It must be regarded as highly improbable that England means 
to alter this situation by violent means, and it is equally im- 
probable that the Sultan of his own accord will divest himself 
of rights which are of great importance for Turkey and for 
the working of the contemplated great railway. In an epoch 
which has given birth to Pan-Islamism, a movement with 
many promising aspects, the renunciation of the sovereignty 
of the Sultan over Mahomedan territory in Asia would be a 
step which would be entirely inconsistent.'' 

A bhnd man could read between the lines of this inspired 
utterance. The spectacle of Christian Germany invoking Pan- 
Islamism on behalf of her own political and commercial ambi- 
tions is both instructive and entertaining.* 

What is this railway to accomplish? '' The German calcula- 
tion is, of course," says the anonymous writer I have already 
quoted, " not only that new trade will be developed, but that the 
course of present trade will be altered. It is expected that British 
vessels will cease to be the chief medium between Central Europe 
and the East. Passenger traffic with India is to be almost ab- 
sorbed by the Baghdad Railway, reached from London and Paris 
via Munich and Vienna." But far more than this, Asia Minor 
is to serve for the overflow population of the Fatherland; its grain 
is to render Germany independent of the United States and Rus- 
sia; Mesopotamia, irrigated anew, is to overflow with agricultural 
wealth; tobacco, silk, oil, petroleum, are to be produced lavishly; 
and a German fleet, at a naval base four days from Bombay, with 
a railway to Germany behind it, is to alter the balance of power in 
Asia. All discussion of these developments is stifled in Germany 
at present, but a glance at the map, combined with an elementary 

* A second incident of a similar kind has since (December, 1901) happened at 
Koweit. A Turkish official from Busra visited Koweit and hoisted the Turkish flag 
there, whereupon the commander of a British gunboat hauled it down and hoisted 
Mubarek's own flag. The Porte has repudiated its official's action and assured Eng- 
land that it has no desire to disturb the status quo. The French and Russian press 
is angry, but the Russian Government has privately disavowed any aggressive 'inten- 
tion in that part of the world. 



262 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

knowledge of ancient economic history, is sufficient to show them 
plainly. 

This, then, is the very serious rivalry which Russia has now 
to face in her cherished policy. It is not surprising that she is 
genuinely alarmed. Two years ago (November, 1899) the Russki 
Trudy a well-informed weekly, since suppressed, prophetically 
remarked: '^ We have repeatedly urged that before great inter- 
ests have been developed in Persia the whole of this country must 
somehow or other be drawn into the sphere of Russian influence. 
What we can now attain without any sacrifices on our side, later 
on, when the auspicious moment will have passed, would require 
immense efiforts in a struggle with Germany, which has for a long 
time past been aiming at the Persian Gulf." A month later, when 
the Turkish concession to Germany was known, the Novoye 
Vremya expatiated with alarm upon the " terrible blow " which 
Germany would be able to deal to Russian trade, and upon the 
prospect of Russia having to fight in Persia " not only against the 
British, but against a whole coalition of Western Commercial 
adventurers," while the Sviet saw Russia face to face not with 
the Triple but with a Quadruple and even a Quintuple Alli- 
ance, formed by the adhesion of Great Britain and Turkey to 
Germany, Austria, and Italy. Now the Novoye Vremya an- 
nounces frankly that " before the German Baghdad Railway 
has become an accomplished fact, Russia's railway projects in 
Persia will have been advanced to an important stage," and 
in its alarm even holds out a surprising olive-branch to Eng- 
land: 

" We cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that the Near 
Orient is of immense importance to us. It is absolutely indis- 
pensable to the final accompHshment of an historical task im- 
posed by Providence upon Russia. As England is perfectly well 
aware of this, she has swayed hither and thither, pro and con, in 
her dealings with Germany with regard to the latter's Baghdad 
Railway scheme. . . . Had England conferred one-half the 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA 263 

favours upon this country which she has heaped upon her wily and 
ungrateful German neighbour, there would to-day exist a cordial 
and durable Anglo-Russian entente, if not, indeed, a complete and 
lasting Alliance." * 

I have already described briefly what Russia is doing in the 
matter of raihvay expansion toward the Persian frontier, and 
what her further intentions are believed to be.f 

In 1898 Count Vladimir Kapnist, cousin of the then Russian 
Ambassador in Vienna, applied on behalf of an international syn- 
dicate for a concession to construct a railway from Tripoli to 
Koweit, uniting the Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf, with 
the double object of developing the marvellously rich country 
traversed by the Euphrates and the Tigris, and of reducing the 
journey from Brindisi to Bombay from thirteen days to eight4 
In spite of very influential support, however, the scheme fell 
through. The claim that such a railway would have added enor- 
mously to the wealth of the world appears to be well-founded, 

* Under the circumstances this overture may be read with a smile in England, but 
for my own part I believe the assertion in the last paragraph (omitting the adjectives 
applied to Germany) to be unquestionably true. 

tSee Chapter XIV., and also Chapter XXIV. 

X The following was the exact route laid down by the engineers to the syndicate. 
From Tripoli the line would follow the sea-coast as far as the Nahr-el-Kebir, and then 
up the course of that river over the lowest and easiest pass which could be found 
through the chain of mountains rimning parallel to the Syrian coast. The line would 
reach a summit level of about 2,000 feet above the sea between Tripoli and Homs, on 
a plateau of hard black basalt. Thence it would proceed to Homs, which is about 
1,500 feet above the sea, and on through Palmyra, past numerous villages, to Rahaba, 
on the Euphrates, following, in the main, the present caravan route. The railway 
would go down the valley of the Euphrates as far as El Kaim, then over the plains to 
Hit, where it would cross the river and proceed to Iskanderieh, the junction for Bagh- 
dad and for Khannikin (on the Persian frontier), and to Kerbela and Nedjef, the 
famous shrines and burial-places of the Persian Mahomedans, on the south ; thence, in 
as nearly a straight line as possible, across the great alluvial plain between the two 
rivers to Kurna, where it would again cross the Euphrates and be continued to Busra, 
and thence across country to Koweit, on the Persian Gulf. — The Times, December 
17, 1898. Another application for a similar railway concession, this time from Alex- 
andretta to Aleppo and thence to Hit and onward, is said {Daily Mail, April 27, 
1899) to have been unsuccessfully made by Mr. Ernest Rechnitzer, a Hungarian 
banker resident in London, backed by English, German, and Belgian capital. 



264 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

but as it would not have strengthened Germany or Russia to 
the exclusion of other nations it was doubtless wrecked by the 
opposition, or failed to succeed for lack of the official support, 
of one or both of these Powers. Russia has never turned aside 
from her " historical task," however. Her agents have worked 
with complete success in the Persian capital; a good road has 
been built by a group of Moscow merchants, heavily backed by 
Imperial subsidies, from Resht, on the Caspian, to Tehran; the 
Shah's " Cossacks " are commanded by Russian oi^cers and have 
recently been increased in number to 2,000; and parties of her 
surveyors have examined the railway routes to the Gulf. That 
her present aim is the incorporation of Persia in the Russian 
Empire admits of no doubt whatever; indeed it was recently 
openly avowed by the Chief Officer, a personage of princely rank, 
of the Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovitch, of the battleship 
Rostislav, at a banquet in Odessa, who declared it to be just as 
certain that Persia would become Russian as that Manchuria had 
already done so.* 

All accounts, official and private, agree that Russia has been 
extremely active in Persia of late, and she has twice despatched 
to the Gulf ports a steamship named the Kornilov, carrying Rus- 
sian goods with which to open trade relations, and an investi- 
gating commission of twenty merchants, and is also stated to 
have sent a lighter draught vessel, the Azov, to enable her 
admiralty hydrographers to take soundings of important points. 
Her newspapers declare that her forward policy in Persia is 
due to the British preparations for a railway from Quetta to 
Siestan, and ultimately to Busra — '' another base from which 
she may attack us in Central Asia " ! — but, as a matter of plain 
fact, no direct evidence of Russian aims in this direction need 
be adduced. Her determination to construct such a railway 
as is here described follows naturally and logically from her 
political, geographical, and commercial conditions, and would 

* See The Standard, July 22, 1901. 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA 265 

similarly follow in the case of any other nation so situated. 
It would be of such enormous value to her, from every point 
of view, that her statesmen would be poor in patriotism indeed, 
if they did not make every conceivable effort to secure it.'^ 
Other nations, however, may be equally interested to prevent 
it, but this aspect of the situation is apart from the matter in 
hand, and I shall return to it later, in connection with the 
political relations of Russia with her neighbours, great and 
small.f 



This somewhat lengthy digression has been intended to show 
what reasons Russia has, or thinks she has, for linking her Euro- 
pean railway system without delay to her Trans-Caspian Railway. 
I return now to Central Asia, with the reflection, to begin with, 
that the position of this link must chiefly depend upon its im- 
mediate object. For one of two practical considerations would 
be decisive: the route would be selected either for its strategical 
value and to form ultimately the connection with India, or else 
primarily for the development of new territory. If the former, 
then the shortest and most direct route would undoubtedly have 
been from Saratof, on the Volga, to the little town of Alexandrof- 
gai, one hundred and forty miles to the southeast (the two are 
already connected by a narrow-gauge railway), bending round the 
north of the Caspian and the south of the Aral Sea, and running 
straight by Khiva to the station of Amu-Darya (Charjui) on the 
main line of the Trans-Caspian Railway. This railway would have 
the disadvantage of passing through comparatively poor territory, 
but it would be almost a straight line from Moscow to Amu- 
Darya, and, via Merv and Kushk Post, would place the head- 
quarters of the Russian army within literally a few days of its 

** "That Russia seriously contemplates such an adventure I do not for a moment 
believe." Sir Lepel Griffin, quoted by Mr. P. H. Oakley Williams, in the Fa// 
Mall Gazette, February 19, 1900. 

t See Chapter XXIV. 



0.66 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

military objective, whether this were Afghanistan, Persia, or Chi- 
nese Turkestan. The distance from Alexandrof-gai to Amu- 
Darya station would be 1,128 miles, and the cost of laying this 
line, which would meet with no engineering difificulty of any im- 
portance, is estimated at £9,500,000 — $46,300,000 — including an 
iron bridge over the Volga at Saratof, and the widening of the 
line from Saratof to Alexandrof-gai. When it was completed, the 
distance from Moscow to Merv, which latter we may take as a 
central point of concentration, would be 1,980 miles, and at an 
average speed of twenty miles an hour, Merv would be just four 
days distant from Moscow, and in less than another day the 
Afghan frontier would be reached at Kushk Post. If strat- 
egical and rapid-transit interests were adjudged paramount, 
this seems obviously the line which should have been con- 
structed. 

Russian statesmen have been led by considerations of direct 
and strategical transit, rather than by commercial and agricultural 
potentialities, but they have not chosen this route. For reasons 
difBcult to understand they have decided upon a railway from 
Orenburg to Tashkent. The Russki Invalid, which has just 
published an account of it, admits that it will traverse a large 
tract of sparsely populated and barren land. After leaving Oren- 
burg it will pass through Ilentsk and Aktiubinsk and strike the 
Syr Darya at Kazalinsk. It will then follow the course of the 
river to Tashkent, passing on the way the fort of Karmakchi, 
the town of Petrofsk, and the village of Julek. It will be a 
single line and have a length of about 1,150 miles. The build- 
ing of the railway is already in full swing; on the northern part, 
from Orenburg to Kazalinsk, the earth-works and the building 
of bridges are almost finished, and the laying of the rails will 
be commenced next spring; in the southern part the work is 
not so far advanced, but preparations are being made and ma- 
terials collected. It is expected that the railway will be opened 
on January i (14th), 1905, and it will then be possible to run 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA 267 

trains from St. Petersburg and Moscow to Tashkent and the 
whole Trans-Caspian Hne. The estimated cost of the raihvay 
is 115 milHon roubles — £12,150,000, $58,175,000. When com- 
pleted, the journey will be: Moscow to Samara, 738 miles; 
Samara to Orenburg, 260 miles (railway trafftc has long existed 
to this point); Orenburg to Tashkent, 1,150 miles; and Tash- 
kent to Merv, by the existing Hne, 597 miles. Total: 2,745 
miles, as against the 1,980 miles via Alexandrof-gai. 

When I was in Tashkent I was told by the Director of the 
Topographical Bureau that this decision had been reached, and 
that the line would shortly be commenced, but after studying 
the alternative routes I thought that he must be mistaken, and 
I am still unable to find a reason for the choice that has been made. 
In each case over a thousand miles of new rails must be laid, 
no engineering difficulties occur, and the country traversed is 
almost worthless for agricultural or commercial development. 
The one important difference is that by the Orenburg-Tashkent 
route the military centre of Russia in Europe is some seven hun- 
dred miles further from the military focus of Russia in Central 
Asia. 

The chief export of Central Asia to Russia is, and will be in 
a still greater degree, cotton. At present this goes to the mills 
of Moscow by the Trans-Caspian Railway, the Caspian Sea, and 
the Volga in summer, and the Russian railway system instead of 
the Volga in winter, the former rate being 1.08 rouble and the 
latter 1.30 rouble per poud. From the centre of the cotton dis- 
tricts of Fergana to Moscow is reckoned at 3,212 versts, and 
the freight of cotton at one-thirtieth of a kopeck per poud per 
verst, which works out at 1.07 rouble per poud '^ — practically the 
same cost as by the existing railway and the Volga in summer. 
Thus only in winter will the line to Orenburg be of service 

* The English or American reader who desires to translate these figures into the 
currency and quantities of his own country can do so by the equivalents given in the 
Appendix. 



268 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

to the greatest export of the country, and then only, allowing 
fully for all the disadvantages of the present route, by reducing 
the total cost of cotton in Moscow by 3 per cent.* — a trifle, while 
on the imports of manufactured goods from Russia, costing much 
more and paying a higher freight than cotton, the percentage of 
advantage will be considerably less. A branch will doubtless be 
run from the flourishing little town of Orsk, 152 miles to the 
southeast of Orenburg, in the centre of a cattle-breeding district, 
to Chelyabinsk, on the Siberian side of the Urals, the commence- 
ment, properly speaking, of the Trans-Siberian Railway. This 
will bring grain and iron to Trans-Caspia, and thus to some 
extent afford a commercial justification of the choice of route, but 
even here I cannot see that the advantage over the present line 
of transportation will be anything like great enough to lead us 
to believe that the interests of commerce dictated the choice of 
the new line. 

If commercial and agricultural development were really the 
paramount consideration, then beyond any question a line con- 
necting Turkestan wdth Western Siberia would confer the great- 
est benefit. This would run from Tashkent, via the town and 
Russian fort of Aulie-ata, one hundred and fifty-five miles to the 
northeast; Vernoye, the capital of the province of Semiryechensk, 
with a population of nearly 25,000; Kopal, one hundred and 
seventy miles further on; Sergiopol; Semipalatinsk, capital of the 
province of that name, on the Irtysh River, with a population of 
nearly 20,000; and thence to Omsk, the town probably destined 
to become the most important on the Trans-Siberian Railway. 
This railway would run, as shown, past large and growing towns, 
through districts with an industrious and prosperous population 
of nomads, through a fertile corn-growing country, where the 
best wheat to-day sells for eight kopeks the poud (twopence, or 

* For this calculation I am indebted to an essay by Mr. D. Zhoravko-Pokorski, a 
Russian merchant resident in Central Asia, and to the author himself for interesting 
information and some statistics given elsewhere. 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA 269 

four cents, for thirty-six pounds) through a rich cattle-raising 
steppe, and past known deposits of both coal and gold. More- 
over, it would enormously increase the production of cotton in 
Turkestan, by bringing cheap wheat into that country from Si- 
beria and thus allowing all the land now necessarily given to corn- 
growing to be devoted to the far more profitable cultivation of 
cotton. 



The reader who has followed this somewhat technical rail- 
way discussion will have gathered that Russia has two inter- 
twined aims and motives, that she is driving two politico-economic 
horses abreast, so to speak. She greatly desires to connect her 
European railway system with the railways of British India, across 
Central Asia and Afghanistan. And she desires this for two 
reasons: first, that she may enjoy the great advantages of the 
future ownership of the great international railway route to the 
East; and second, that by depriving any prospective railway 
to the Persian Gulf of much of its raison d'etre she may pre- 
vent it being built, and thus block the creation of what would 
undoubtedly be an almost insuperable obstacle to her protectorate 
over Persia, and her own railway to the Persian Gulf. This 
policy may be thought to resemble Paul Morphy's announce- 
ment of mate in twenty-three moves, but Russian diplomacy 
is accustomed to look far ahead and to calculate with wide 
combinations, and when I say above that such is Russia's de- 
sire, I mean that I know that the men who chiefly direct her 
policy have these particular aims in view and very much at 
heart. 

Most readers will by now have formulated an objection some- 
what in this shape: it is all very well for Russia to talk about join- 
ing her Central Asian railways to the Indian railways, and thus 
securing a great rapid-transit route from Europe to the richest 
East, but what about Afghanistan and the Indian Government — 



ayo ALL THE RUSSIAS 

will they, under any circumstances, permit such a junction to be 
made, and thus prepare an easy road for Russian troops to enter 
India? * The question is, of course, of the first importance, and 
in the present state of feeling on both sides, it can only be an- 
swered with some discretion. In the first place, such a junction 
is absolutely certain to come some day, but the time may be far 
ofif. Second, if Russia were successful in a war against England, 
it would assuredly be one of her conditions of peace. Third, a 
railway would give little advantage to Russia that it would not 
give to England, for if it would enable Russia to hurry troops 
toward India, it would equally enable England to hurry Indian 
troops toward Central Asia, and the final advantage would 
thus be, as it always is in war, to the quickest to act. Fourth, it 
would do much to remove international misunderstanding, for 
it would bring intelHgent and commercial Russians into India, 
and a similar class of English and Anglo-Indians into Russia. 
Finally, will not the moment soon come, when two civilised 
nations will refuse to allow an uncivilised regime, friendly at 
heart to neither and only friendly in action to one of them so 
long as self-interest dictates such a course,f to stand in the way 
of one of those great advances of intercommunication, which 
are the chief signs and promoters of civilisation? In view of 
these considerations, it can hardly be thought unreasonable for 
Russia to plan her Central Asian communications with a view 
to their ultimate extension to Central India. 

If the two nations agreed to join hands across Afghanistan, 
with their respective railway systems as at present existing, the 
route would be from Merv to Kushkinski Post, thence to New 
Chaman, the present terminus of the Indian frontier railway, sixty 
miles northwest of Quetta; thence to Sukkur and Ruk junction; 
and from there either to the Punjab or to Karachi, one of the four 

* For the details of the Russian branch railway to the Afghan frontier, see the pre- 
ceding Chapter, and for the political question of Russia and India, see Chapter XXIV. 
+ This was written before the death of the late Amir of Afghanistan. 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA 271 

great seaports of India. If Kushkinski Post and New Chaman 
were connected by railway to-day, a distance of only four hun- 
dred and thirty-eight miles, without any new line whatever being 
constructed by either Russia or India, the distance from London 
to Karachi by rail (including the short sea passages of the Chan- 
nel and the Caspian) is calculated by Mr. Paul Lessar as 4,716 
miles, and the time of the journey as one hundred and seventy- 
four and one-half hours. The route would be London, Calais, 
Berlin, Alexandrovo, Warsaw, Rostof, Petrofsk, Baku, Krasno- 
vodsk, Merv, Kushk, Chaman, Karachi. If Kushkinski Post 
and New Chaman were connected by rail after the Orenburg- 
Tashkent link is finished, there would be of course an all-rail route 
from Calais to Karachi, but it would take considerably more 
time. 



I have written at what may seem undue length about the 
future of Russian railway construction in Central Asia because it 
is really the most important and significant question in that part 
of the world. It is vitally connected with peace and war alike — 
with commercial development and international rivalry. The 
reader who takes the trouble to grasp the routes I have men- 
tioned and the arguments for and against each of them, will under- 
stand also where the line of next tension lies, and when the first 
step in advance is made — and it may not long be delayed — he 
will be in a position to interpret its intention, to perceive its 
diplomatic significance, and possibly to forecast its military con- 
sequences. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

RUSSIAN ADMINISTRATION IN CENTRAL ASIA: 
TRANS-CASPIA AND TASHKENT 

AS I sat writing my notes in a little whitewashed room in 
the very heart of Asia, having come by train through 
Merv, with its branch straight to the Afghan frontier; past the 
ruined fortress of Geok Tepe, which fought Skobelef for three 
bloody weeks; past Bokhara, the last home of Central Asian Mus- 
sulman fanaticism; by Samarkand, where Genghiz Khan ruled 
and Tamerlane is buried; to Tashkent, which routed a Russian 
army thirty-five years ago — as I sat and thought, on the one 
hand, of this wild, remote, unaltered East, and on the other, that 
I was as safe as if in my own garden and that I had just come 
from a brilliant evening party at the Governor-Generars, it 
seemed to me that I must be dreaming. I almost despair of 
making it all seem real to anybody else, for the position was one 
" at which," in Dr. Johnson's words, '* experience revolts, cre- 
dulity hesitates, and even fancy stares." However, the attempt 
must be made, and I begin with the district in which you set 
foot on landing upon the eastern shore of the Caspian, of^cially 
known as the Trans-Caspian Territory. 

The administrative district of Trans-Caspia extends from the 
Caspian to the frontier of Bokhara, and is under the authority 
of a " Chef du Territoire Transcaspien," with headquarters at 
Askhabad. At the time of my visit this was Lt.-Colonel Bogo- 
liubof, one of the most enlightened administrators it has been 
my good fortune to meet. He is not only a soldier and a states- 
man, but a student; the practical problems of his great province, 

272 



ADMINISTRATION IN CENTRAL ASIA 273 

its commerce, its ethnology, its arts, have all been made by him 
the subjects of profound investigation, and he talks of them 
with rare knowledge and enthusiasm. When I had the pleasure 
of visiting him he was busily engaged upon a great ethnological 
map of Trans-Caspia, the first that had ever been attempted, 
and I believe he will some day pubhsh an epoch-making study 
of Turkoman art, particularly as exhibited in the products of 
Turkoman needlewomen. 

Trans-Caspia has an area of about 215,000 square miles and 
only about 360,000 inhabitants. Its scanty population cannot 
increase, because each Turkoman head of a family requires, to 
live with anything like comfort, ten camels, four to five horses, 
fifty sheep, and two cows, and to feed these, ten square versts 
are needed. Camels cannot be replaced by horses, for only 
camels and asses can eat the prickly " camel's thorn " which is 
the sole fodder available during much of the year. The attempt 
to improve the condition of Trans-Caspia is therefore a struggle 
between civilisation and this nomad life, and it is unlikely that 
civilisation will win. 

Civilisation has had, at any rate, one bad effect — it has killed 
the carpet. The carpet woven by Turkoman women in their 
moving tents, without any pattern to copy, the design being 
handed down in instinct and memory, was, both for design and 
workmanship, the finest thing of the kind in the world. Old 
specimens are now almost unprocurable and fetch huge prices, 
but the examples which may still be had are eagerly bought up. 
In fact, carpets furnish one of the chief topics of conversation 
among Russian officers and functionaries quartered in Trans- 
Caspia. Everybody collects them, and the discussions about 
price and quality, and the comparisons of '' finds " are endless. 
Carpets are pecuHarly convenient to these nomads of civilisation, 
as they were to the uncivilised nomads who originally rnade them, 
for as both soldiers and civilians may not be long in one place 
they seldom possess much furniture, since it could not be trans- 



274 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



ported except at an expense which would ruin them, whereas 
a few empty beer-boxes with carpets and cushions thrown over 
them, and a few carpets hung on the walls, give you a fine 
Eastern salon at once. Moreover, carpets can be easily taken 
home, and then if you wish you can probably sell them for much 
more than you gave for them. There is unfortunately one draw- 
back — all modern carpets fade. 

The old carpet, however, is now perhaps the one relic left 
of a great bygone civilisation, for assuredly the Turkomans in 




In the New Tashkent. 

their dirt and squalor could not have invented the beautiful de- 
signs that their women made till recently. The patterns and 
the surroundings are in too great a contrast. The different great 
tribes of Turkomans — the Sariks, Saliks, and nearer the Caspian 
the Yumuds — are indistinguishable in their dress, their utensils, 
their habits, etc.; their carpets alone can serve to distinguish 
them. These are their passports — their visiting cards. Perhaps 
these very patterns were given them by Nebuchadnezzar! But 
aniline dyes and loom competition are killing these fast, and 



ADMINISTRATION IN CENTRAL ASIA 275 

soon nothing except their old carpets will be left to tell of a 
mysterious civilisation of the far past. This whole region, as far 
as China, is the field of rectangular ornaments, and the details 
of these patterns recur in the most extraordinary fashion. A de- 
tail can be traced, for instance, through China, Afghanistan, Per- 
sia, and Galicia. In Trans-Caspia are two well-marked races, 
about whom we know almost everything — in the north the 
Kirghiz, in the south the Russians. In the farthest south there 
are two or three tribes of Arabs and Jews, come nobody knows 
how or when. But the Turkomans are the great mystery, and 
it will only be from their carpets that the problem of their origin 
and movements will be solved at last. The magic carpet of 
Eastern fable, which transports its possessor in an instant to the 
other end of the earth, has its counterpart in the carpet which 
will carry the student round the Asian world in the track of its 
racial design. 

Not only cannot the population of Trans-Caspia increase, but, 
so far as can be foreseen, its productivity is likely to decline. 
Cotton is its chief, indeed practically its only important export. 
It formerly possessed the finest race of horses in the world, and 
the Turkoman, who lived by raiding, esteemed his steed far 
above all his other belongings, including his wife. But Russian 
rule has imposed peace upon him, and therefore the need of his 
horse, and his incentive to breed and cherish it, have gone. So, 
in spite of Imperial Commissions and the importation of Arab 
stallions, the fleet and tireless Turkoman horse, with his flashing 
eye and scarlet nostril, is extinct forever. And the production 
of cotton cannot increase without an increase of water for irriga- 
tion, and instead of more there is growing steadily less. For the 
Kopet Dagh Mountains, which rise above Askhabad, and are the 
great source of water supply, are gradually wearing away. Ages 
ago there was eternal snow upon them; now they are nowhere 
more than 9,000 feet high. The explanation is that they are of 
clayey substance. In summer the great heat calcines this clay to 



276 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

powder, then the rains come and wash it away. Hence the 
fecundating power of the rivers, but hence also their ultimate 
disappearance. A geographical authority has said of this whole 
region that '' both glaciers and rivers continue to lose volume; 
the lakes are shrinking and the extremes of temperature become 
more marked, while the sands of the desert are steadily encroach- 
ing on the cultivated zones." A well was recently sunk three 
miles from the mountains to a depth of seven hundred metres 
without striking water. The truth is that this water question, 




A Cossack Patrol in Tashkent. 

vital to the prosperity and indeed to the existence of Trans- 
Caspia, is in the last analysis a political issue — a peculiarly in- 
teresting example of the forces underlying diplomacy and 
national ambitions. For the water-basin of this part of Trans- 
Caspia is in Persia, and the Amir of Afghanistan controls, in 
the River Murghab, the water supply of the great Merv oasis 
and other districts. Therefore if these possessions of Russia 
are ever to regain their ancient wealth, when Merv, for instance, 
was really " Queen of the World," Russia must rule in Persia 



ADMINISTRATION IN CENTRAL ASIA 277 

and Afghanistan. Northern Persia — the province of Khorassan 
— is probably at her mercy, to seize whenever an opportunity 
or an excuse presents itself, but Afghanistan is quite another 
matter, for the British fleet blocks the way thither. Thus the 
cotton crop of Central Asia, and purchases for Russia on the 
markets of Richmond and New Orleans — for it is Russia's de- 
sire to grow all her own cotton and buy none abroad — depend 
at last upon the number of ironclads that fly the cross of St. 
George in the Channel and the Mediterranean. It is, I repeat, 
a peculiarly interesting example of the correlation of sea-power 
and political history, but it should not surprise the readers of 
Captain Mahan. 



The cities of Central Asia to-day are of two widely differing 
kinds — the old and the new, the world-famous towns of antiquity, 
whose proud and fanatical inhabitants have only been constrained 
for a few years to tolerate white men among them, and the 
brand-new settlements which Russia has built up for her admin- 
istrators, her soldiers, and her merchants. Each kind is the more 
interesting according to whether you look at it with the eye of 
the traveller and the ethnologist, or from the point of view of 
the student of contemporary expansion and politics. Krasno- 
vodsk I have sufficiently described; Kizil Arvat is merely the site 
of the railway workshops, where a large number of Russian 
artisans are employed, whose pale wives and children give pain- 
ful evidence of the unhealthiness of the place and climate; Merv 
is wholly a new city, the old " Queen of the World " being noth- 
ing but a few splendid ruins some distance away, an important 
military centre where the prevalence of a particularly virulent 
fever has often suggested the desirability of abandoning the 
town altogether, and where a few miles to the east, the Tsar has 
an *' appanage " which irrigation and skilful management are 
making with a most fertile and profitable estate; Askhabad, the 



278 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



military headquarters of Turkestan, on account of the proximity 
of the Persian frontier and the road to Meshed, is almost entirely 
a new town, where the central railway administration has a 
range of handsome stone-built ofifices. None of these calls for 
any special mention. 

In ordinary times the entire garrison of Central Asia is proba- 
bly about 30,000 men, with headquarters at Askhabad, and the 
chief garrisons at Merv, Tashkent, Samarkand, and Andijan. At 




The Boys' College, Tashkent. 



the present moment this figure is doubtless largely exceeded. 
The civil administration, which, as everywhere in Russia, is elab- 
orate and highly manned, brings a population of its own, under 
a Governor-General of Turkestan at Tashkent, a Governor of the 
Trans-Caspian Territory at Askhabad, and Governors at Samar- 
kand and at Margelan, the administrative centre of Fergana. All 
the public offices are fine commodious buildings, the officials and 
their families live in much comfort, indeed, often in luxury, and 
the foreign shops in the chief towns are large and well stocked. 



ADMINISTRATION IN CENTRAL ASIA 279 

There are admirable schools for Russian children, and many 
native schools for teaching Russian and elementary subjects. 
Two prisons I inspected, and that of Tashkent was, so far as 
I could see, excellent. The other, a mere guard-room in the cita- 
del of Andijan* was not creditable, for the twenty or thirty 
prisoners were crowded together in one apartment without dis- 
tinction of class or crime, the sanitary conditions were offensive, 
and there was no proper supervision. But Andijan is the latest 
and remotest Russian town, and doubtless a proper prison will 
be built before long. It was at the village of Mintiuba, close 
to Andijan, by the way, that an abortive little revolt broke 
out in 1898, suppressed with the usual thoroughness of the 
Russians in such matters, the village being wiped out, a col- 
ony of Russian emigrants planted on its site, eight leaders 
hanged together, and a large number deported to Siberia — via 
Moscow ! 

One curious little fact about Trans-Caspia, by the way, de- 
serves mention. The Persians, of whom there is of course a large 
working and trading population, insist upon being paid with the 
Persian kran, a small silver coin now^ worth 40 kopecks. The 
Russian authorities have recently prohibited its importation, 
but with the only effect, so far, of causing its price to ap- 
preciate. 

The capital of Russian Central Asia — though no such nominal 
position exists — is undoubtedly Tashkent, " the city oi stone," at 
the northern terminus of the railway in Turkestan, and presently 
to be connected with Europe via Oldenburg. Here the two 
kinds of city and the two races are best seen side by side. Tash- 
kent was for many generations, and perhaps still remains, the 
most important strategical focus of Central Asia. An interesting 
and significant incident is connected with its capture. The gallant 
Chernaieflf, advancing victorious from the north, attacked it in 
1864, but was beaten back with heavy loss. Alexander II., averse 
to further slaughter in a cause whose importance he had not 



28o 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



realised, and perhaps fearing complications with England, forbade 
him to make a second attempt. The outcome is a striking ex- 
ample of how Russian officials on remote frontiers drag Russian 
policy at their heels. Chernaieff appears to have known what 
was in the Tsar's despatches, so he attacked first, took the city 
by storm, and then opened his papers. The reply he sent, as 
given by Ney (quoted by Ross and Skrine), was this: '' Your 
Majesty's order frobidding me to take Tashkent has reached me 
only in the city itself, which I have taken and place at your Maj- 
esty's feet." His career was ruined by this act, but Tashkent was 
promptly used as a base from which to subjugate Samarkand 

and Bokhara. It is 
after Chernaiefif that 
the junction of Cher- 
nayevo is named. 

Tashkent is prob- 
ably to-day the larg- 
est town in Asiatic 
Russia, for in 1885 
it was nearly as pop- 
ulous at Tiflis, hav- 
ing 120,000 inhabit- 
ants, and covering 
The first thing that strikes 
station is the width of the 
The former are often fifty 
Through this wades 




A Familiar Sight in Tashkent. 



an area of twelve square miles 
you as you drive from the 
streets, and the second the mud. 
yards wide, and the latter is a foot deep, 
and splashes an extraordinary procession of men and beasts — 
Tajiks, the chief race, of Persian descent, in turbans and multi- 
colored khalats, or loose-sleeved robes gathered at the waist 
with a sash, their material depending upon the wealth of the 
owner; Kirghiz in skins with the fur inside and tight-fitting caps; 
women in sad-toned garments and draped from crown to sole in 
thick, absolutely opaque horse-hair veils; Russian soldiers, always 



ADMINISTRATION IN CENTRAL ASIA 281 

in the same thick grey felt overcoats — in fact, all the eastern 
humanity seen by Matthew Arnold in the past: 

The Tartars of Ferghana, from the banks 

Of the Jaxartes, men with scanty beards 

And close-set skull-caps ; and those wilder hordes 

Who roam o'er Kipchak and the northern waste ; 

Kalmucks and unkempt Kuzzaks, tribes who stray 

Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes, 

Who came on shaggy ponies from Pamere. 

They ride on horses, on donkeys — often two adults on one little 
beast — on shaggy camels or in the arba shown in my photograph, 
with enormously high wheels to enable it to ford rivers without 
wetting its load, the driver seated on the horse in the shafts. 
The Russian town, which has 5,000 or 6,000 inhabitants, consists 
of well-built, low houses of brick and stucco, with roofs of sheet 
iron painted green, and the streets, as everywhere else in these 
Russian settlements, are planted on each side with shade trees, 
chiefly silver poplars. In the Russian shops most of the neces- 
saries and some of the luxuries of life may be bought, though they 
do not compare with the shops of far Siberian towns. There is no 
such thing as a hotel, its place being taken, longo intervallo, by 
what are called Nomera — '' numbers," that is, furnished rooms, to 
which, if you have nowhere else to eat, you can have a greasy meal 
brought. These are dirty, cold, and uncomfortable. But there 
is a magnificent military club, with a theatre and ball-room, 
where you can find all the papers, including a local bi-weekly, 
the Viedojuosti, play cards or billiards, and fare very well indeed, 
being waited upon by soldier orderlies. The Governor-General — 
when I was there, the late General Dukhovskoi — who rules over 
the whole of Turkestan, lives in a charming old-fashioned, wide- 
spreading residency, filled with precious Eastern objects. On 
nights of official reception the staircase is lined with picturesque 
native troops who supply a fitting local colour, and several bands 
of oriental performers with weird instruments provide local sound. 



282 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

I can no longer thank General Dukhovskoi for all his kindness, 
but the hospitality so brilliantly dispensed by Madame Dukhov- 
skoi will not be forgotten by anybody who ever enjoyed it. 
The large staff of officials at Tashkent works in spacious quarters 
in buildings which, as they were erected thirty years ago, show 
the foresight that provided accommodation for all the develop- 
ment to follow. The garrison at the time of my visit consisted 
of four battalions of sharpshooters (strelki), two of the line, one 
of engineers, a regiment of Cossacks, and some artillery. There 
is an observatory, equipped with instruments brought on camel- 




The Arba. 

back across the desert. But the sight remaining most vividly 
in my memory is the Realschule of Tashkent. This was not 
only wonderful because it was in the heart of Asia, but 
also because it would be an admirable school even in Lon- 
don or New York. The enthusiastic headmaster. Prince Dol- 
goruki, conducted me over it, and a better equipped or more 
capably managed educational institution could hardly be 
found. A complete course of instruction is given, and the 
class-rooms, museums, laboratories, gymnasiums, etc., were 
on the latest German model. There are two hundred and 



ADMINISTRATION IN CENTRAL ASIA 283 

ninety-six scholars, all sons of Russian officials and residents 
except two, the son of the late Amir of Kokand and the son 
of a rich native merchant. Among the professors was Mr. 
Howard, a Russian subject, admirably teaching the Eng- 
lish classes, and I was invited to satisfy myself of the ability of 
his scholars. The school costs 40,000 roubles a year, of which 
the boys contribute forty roubles each and the State the rest. 
They take only their dejeuner at school, and for this they pay 
seven roubles each per half-year. I saw this meal, and how it 
is provided for the money I cannot tell. Afterward I visited 
the Technical School, and here, remembering the admirable 
Austrian native schools of Bosnia, I was disappointed to find 
but very few native boys. It appears, however, that they in- 
variably fall behind, and most of them leave after the second 
year. But any native boy who wishes to learn can attend one 
of the gratuitous schools in the native quarter where Russian 
is taught and elementary instruction given by some of the most 
devoted educationalists I have seen, who live in discomfort and 
on a pittance, devoted to their work and worshipped by their 
scholars. Altogether, in fact, Russia is doing more to educate 
her people, both Russian and native, in Central Asia than she 
is doing in Europe. 

The native quarter of Tashkent contains nothing of interest, 
unless it be the old citadel which ChernaiefT stormed and after- 
ward put in repair for his own defence. It is simply a wide enceinte 
surrounded by high earthen walls, commanding the city by a 
number of guns. Within its area are the magazines and barracks, 
but as a military work it is long out of date. No foreigner has 
ever visited it, so I remarked to the Governor-General that I 
should like to do so. He was surprised, but upon reflection, see- 
ing no reason why he should refuse, consented, and issued a 
written order that I should be admitted. The officer in command 
was the most surprised individual in Central Asia when I arrived 
with my order. He conducted me into the guard-room within 



284 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



the walls, and then inquired courteously what it was that I wished 
to see; foresaid he, "There is nothing whatever remarkable 
in the citadel." 

" I beg your pardon," I repUed, " but I believe there is a most 
extraordinary thing here at this moment." 

" What may that be? " he asked, in much surprise. 

** An Englishman," I said; and he laughed and admitted that 
it was indeed so. This citadel, however, reminds me of an inci- 
dent which explains how Chernaieff came to conquer these peo- 



-jii" 




Father and Son in Tashkent. 



pies as he did. After the storming, and even before the dead 
natives had all been buried, and almost before the firing had 
ceased, finding himself war-stained and uncomfortable from not 
having changed his clothes for days, he went, alone and unat- 
tended, on the very afternoon of his victory, in spite of the pro- 
tests of his staff, to the vapour-baths in the native city. Such 
extraordinary coolness and indifference made a greater impres- 
sion than all his Cossacks and cannon. This is indeed how na- 
tives are taught who is their master, as our own earlier Indian 
annals abundantly show. 



ADMINISTRATION IN CENTRAL ASIA 285 

Statistics of Central Asian trade are not easy to procure, for 
Russia is very jealous of foreign curiosity there. The annual 
report, for example, of the Trans-Caspian Railway is printed in 
two parts, one the military and confidential portion; the other 
the commercial. The director of the railway at Askhabad bluntly 
refused to give me the latter, though the highest local authority 
ordered him to do so, without a direct order from the Minister of 
War, and this of course I did not apply for, as it would have 
invested my natural and innocent curiosity with a suspicious im- 
portance. But certainly Russian trade here has grown by leaps 
and bounds, except with Afghanistan, where it has ceased alto- 
gether, for political reasons, and by the action of the Amir. 
Askhabad station was opened in December, 1885, and by Oc- 
tober, 1886, no less than 360,000 pouds of merchandise had 
passed through en route for Persia. Taking the average of the 
three years previous to the opening of the railway, 1883-5, ^^^ 
the average of four years, 1893-6, the imports of the country 
nearly trebled, while the exports nearly quadrupled. During 
the year 1899 (the latest statistical year), the Trans-Caspian 
Railway carried 24,999 passengers and 376,000 tons of freight, 
and its gross receipts were £725,376, or £590 per mile. And this, 
be it remembered, upon a railway originally built as a strategical 
line and until a short time ago under the direct control of the 
Minister of War. The exception to the development of trade is 
Afghanistan — a fact evidently unknown to writers who have 
pointed morals by the relations of Russians and Afghans in Cen- 
tral Asia. 

In 1895 Afghan exports to Russian territory were of the 
value of 209,000 roubles; and in 1896 of 83,000 roubles; while 
Russia exported to Afghanistan in 1895, 21,000 roubles, and 
in 1896 the trade ceased completely. The trade of Persia, 
it should be added, is with Russia proper; Trans-Caspia 
is merely the point of transit and produces nothing which 
Persia buys. 



286 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

It will be evident, I think, before I have done with Central 
Asia, and I may as well set down the reflection now, that Russia 
has carried out a great task here, and on the whole, most worthily. 
Not only must the greatness of her conquest evoke our admira- 
tion, but the qualities of civiHsation she has afterwards imposed, 
the peace, the commerce, the comparative happiness and well- 
being of the people, should also win our sincere respect. 



CHAPTER XIX 

NEW BOKHARA AND ITS PROSPECTS 

RUSSIA has been very careful not to annex the Khanate of 
, Bokhara. She had enough on her hands in Central Asia 
without undertaking direct responsibility for the government of 
three million fanatical Mussulmans, who have never learned the 
lesson that Skobelef administered to the Turkomans. So she 
made it into a Protected State, thereby securing all the advan- 
ages of control and commerce, without assuming the obligation 
of good government. She has nothing to fear from Bokhara; 
the Amir is a nonentity, mentally and physically exhausted, 
though not yet forty; her own territory is on both sides of it; her 
main railway runs within ten miles of the capital and could bring 
a small army in a day; by her control of the Zarafshan she has 
Bokhara at her mercy, for she could cut off the water-supply 
and ruin every crop at once; and no trade except Russian is per- 
mitted. So the Bokharans are left in their original dirt and 
cruelty and corruption, nominally under the rule of their own 
sovereign. He, however, does not greatly appreciate his posi- 
tion, for he spends all his time at a hunting lodge near Termene, 
the fifth station up the line beyond the capital, 44 miles away, 
his passion being for falconry — a sport the local importance of 
which may be judged from the fact that the principal Minister of 
State is called Khus Begi, " Chief of the Falconers." He receives 
reports, however, every day, brought by relays of horsemen who 
cover the distance in three hours — the railway taking four ! In 
his capital his prestige is gone, and he dislikes the vicinity of his 
Russian masters, but on the rare occasions — sometimes not once 

2S7 



288 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

in a year — when he visits Bokhara he sharply reminds his people 
of his existence by taking a dozen condemned wretches from the 
prison and having their throats cut in the open bazaar. I said 
that Russia had left Bokhara in its original cruelty, but this is 
not quite accurate. She has aboUshed the open sale of slaves and 
the native method of execution by trussing hapless criminals 
like fowls and flinging them from the top of the great tower. 
But otherwise she has left Bokhara as it was, and, above all, she 
has left untouched the prison of execrable memory. Here it was 
that the two English officers, Stoddart and Connolly, sent on a 
diplomatic mission from the Indian Government about sixty 
years ago, were flung into the pit where sheep-ticks, most loath- 
some of insects, gnawed the flesh from the bones of living men. 

When the Russians reached Bokhara with their railway they 
were rather afraid of the natives, and as a measure of precaution 
they created New Bokhara, eight miles from Old Bokhara, and 
placed the station there. Now they realise that their caution 
was excessive, and wish they had originally gone straight to the 
town, and thus avoided the necessity of building a branch railway 
to connect it with the main line. New Bokhara consists of a few- 
European houses, the Residency and offices, and a clean and 
comfortable little hostelry, called the Hotel d'Europe, kept by a 
worthy German and his wife. The Amir maintains a suite of 
rooms in a native house in the old city for the use of the Resi- 
dent, who thereby avoids disturbing the populace by too much 
show of foreign dominion. M. Ignatieff was so kind as to allow 
me to use these rooms, as there is of course no place in the native 
city where a foreigner can even take a meal. 

The Resident has a personal escort of about a score of Cos- 
sacks, and there is a detachment of railway sappers, who do 
technical work and furnish guards for the bank, post-office, etc. 
The Amir, on the other hand — and the contrast is instructive — 
is allowed to keep a so-called army of 30,000 men in the whole 
country, 10,000 of whom are in the city of Bokhara. In spite 



NEW BOKHARA AND ITS PROSPECTS 289 

of their scarlet trousers they can hardly be called soldiers, and 
their best weapons are a few thousand old rifles given them by 
Russia, with old-fashioned triangular bayonets. Concerning 
these rifles, and bearing their origin in mind, my meaning will 
doubtless be obvious when I say that I should be quite wilHng 
to let a Bisley marksman shoot at me at a hundred yards with 
one of them. And while speaking of the Bokharan army I 
must repeat a pleasant story I read somewhere. The Amir's 
forces were once exhibiting themselves at a field-day before a 
Russian general. . Suddenly, to his intense surprise, all the men 
in the front line threw themselves upon their backs and waved 
their legs in the air. But he was more astonished still when, in 
reply to his inquiry as to the military purport of this remarkable 
manoeuvre, he was assured that it was exactly copied from the 
Russian drill ! The explanation turned out to be that once when 
Russian troops were attacking, they had been obliged to ford 
a stream waist-deep, and on gaining the bank they had all lain 
down and lifted up their legs to let the water run out of their long 
boots. The Bokharans, attributing the victory which immedi- 
ately followed to this impressive stratagem, had promptly incor- 
porated it in their own tactics. 

Political writers about Central Asia often speculate upon the 
possibility of a Mussulman rising against Russia there, and as 
Bokhara is undoubtedly the most fanatical country, this seems 
the place to say a few words on the subject. If there should ever 
he a real Pan-Islamic movement — if the Mussulman world should 
€ver be inspired with a common religious fervour against the 
Cross, then of course the Crescent would be raised in Central 
Asia also, and the Russians would have all they could do for a 
short time. And such an outburst is not quite as improbable as 
most people think. It will hardly come from the appeals and 
intrigues of the ruler of the Ottoman Turks in Constantinople, 
who enjoys among millions of his co-religionists no loftier title 
than " Sultan of Roum," although the fact is remarkable that cer- 



290 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

tain communities who hitherto acknowledged no allegiance to 
him, as in Tripoli, for instance, now accept the obligation of mili- 
tary service for the defence of Islam, but many little signs — 
such as the collection of £2,000 by the Anjuman-i-hlam in Bom- 
bay for the projected Damascus-Mecca railway — show that it 
is not altogether out of the question. After the revolt in Fer- 
gana in 1898 the Russian authorities were very anxious for a 
time about the state of Bokhara, and the telegraph line to Tash- 
kent was monopolised with military conversations. Curiously 
enough, at that very moment a Russian railway watchman was 
killed by a native. The latter was tried by a Court consisting of 
the Acting Resident and two native Begs, and was condemned 
to death. And then the Russians played one of those little 
master-strokes of policy which, insignificant in themselves, con- 
tribute so largely to their success with Oriental races. Instead 
of making a mystery and conferring great importance upon the 
incident by executing the murderer in the Russian town, with 
all the elaborate ceremonial of a European death-penalty, they 
simply handed him over to the Bokharan authorities, who cut 
his throat in the bazaar in the good old way. This completely 
reassured the native authorities, who had believed that the Rus- 
sian would treat the murder as a political offence, and make 
it an excuse for annexing the country. 

The war between Turkey and Greece, again, produced a con- 
siderable impression in Bokhara, and the news was eagerly dis- 
cussed in the bazaars. The Resident discovered some Turks from 
Egypt, fomenting religious feeling, and the Political Agent at 
Tashkent told me that he had found and arrested several fanatical 
mollahs from Constantinople. On one Friday evening I was en- 
abled by a Russian friend, who is an acute and sympathetic stu- 
dent of native life, to enjoy the rare advantage of being present 
at the regular prayers of a widespread dervish sect in one of the 
chief towns, and nobody could witness the profound attention 
of the crowd at first, gradually growing into fanatical fervour,. 



NEW BOKHARA AND ITS PROSPECTS 291 

and finally reaching a height of religious madness when anything 
would have been possible, the whole crowd swaying rapidly and 
abruptly back and forth to the deafening rhythmic staccato shout 
of Ya hou! Ya hak! — and not realise that the tinder and the 
spark are never very far apart in Central Asia. For these men, 
barking like mad wolves under the temporary sway of religious 
hypnotism, were not performing for Christian money, like the 
dervish mummers of Cairo, but were just pious Mussulmans 
come to prayers and in many cases plainly drawn into the vor- 
tex in spite of themselves. But a Russian fort w^as not two miles 
away, and at a warning gun four thousand men would have 
sprung to arms. Pan-Islamism, even if it should break forth, 
would accomplish nothing in Russian Asia — unless Russia her- 
self should be fighting for her life elsewhere. 

A local revolt in Bokhara, however, is another matter, and 
upon this I have a decided opinion, namely, that it is more than 
probable. But it will be a revolt in favour of Russia, not against 
her. Government in Bokhara under Russian protection is, as I 
have said, almost as bad as under unmitigated native oppression, 
and in the matter of tax-gathering — always more considered by 
a native than life and liberty — it is quite as bad. Now the Bok- 
haran looks across the border into Samarkand, and sees that his 
fellows under Russian rule, men with neither more land nor more 
fertile land than himself, are contented and comparatively rich, 
and know precisely what their obligations are and how much 
money the tax-collector will require of them; while they them- 
selves know neither, and must live at the mercy and the whim of 
every cruel and rapacious official. Therefore the prospect is that 
sooner or later, when they have outgrown their dislike of the infi- 
del, the Bokharans will demand to be taken under Russian gov- 
ernment. One informant assured me that this would have been 
done before now except for the fact that when the Amir visited 
the Tsar at his coronation the latter promised him that no change 
should be made in the status of Bokhara while he reigned, and that 



292 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

consequently if the Amir dies before the Tsar another Amir will be 
allowed to rule. But even in this case a stricter supervision would 
probably be exercised, especially as regards taxing the people. 
Indeed there are other signs that a change in this direction is 
coming, for a handsome new palace is being built halfway between 
New and Old Bokhara, the intention — it was M. Lessar's idea — 
being that the Amir shall have some fitting place in which to 
receive the Russian authorities, who will doubtless take advantage 
of more frequent interviews to exert a more extended influence. 
But meanwhile, Russia has clearly had every advantage in leaving 
things as they are, and up to the present her tendency has been 
rather to shift burdens on to the Amir's shoulders than to relieve 
him of any — as in the*«ession to Bokhara of Roshan and Shignan 
from the British sphere. This is not at all to the taste of the mili- 
tary caste in Tashkent and Merv, who would like nothing so much 
as an order to march on. Bokhara, in view of the ease of the 
campaign, and the shower of crosses, medals, and promotions 
that would follow. 

The Trans-Caspian Railway has, of course, wrought a revolu- 
tion since it reached the valley of the Zarafshan. In pre-railway 
days Bokhara's connection with Russia was by the old caravan 
route via Kazalinsk and Orenburg, when the cost of transport 
was three roubles a poud and the journey depended on so many 
accidental circumstances — a scarcity of camels, for instance — 
that its duration could never be foreseen, and goods sometimes 
remained at Kazalinsk for months, spoiling, while all the risks 
were the sender's, since nobody would grant insurances against 
them. Up to 1887 Russia sent to Bokhara iron, crockery, sugar, 
cheap safes, oils and colours, to the extent of about 8,000 tons a 
year, and Bokhara exported to Russia and to Turkestan some 
16,000 tons of cotton, wool, sheep-skins, goat-skins and karakul 
— the lamb-skin we know as " astrachan." At this time, how- 
ever, Bokhara enjoyed a trade of over 3,000 tons a year with 
India, via Afghanistan, importing indigo, green tea, and Eng- 



NEW BOKHARA AND ITS PROSPECTS 293 

lish manufactures, but the new railway enabled Moscow manu- 
facturers to flood the market with cheap manufactured articles, 
driving out the better but dearer English goods, a process which 
the Russian Government completed when necessary by prohibi- 
tive tariffs. Bokhara was the depot for tea and indigo for the 
whole country, and it now gets, via Meshed, Askhabad, Dushak, 
and Kaakhka, the remnant of what used to reach it from Kabul. 
For sugar Russia has established depots at Bokhara and remits 
the excise and pays a bounty upon all that is sold there. Bok- 
haran imports have risen from 8,000 tons in 1887 to over 42,000 
tons in 1896, but exports have not risen in proportion, having 
never exceeded 21,000 tons. This discrepancy is attributed by 
the local authority I have previously quoted to four causes: the 
limited sphere which is really tapped by the railway, and the in- 
difference of merchants to districts distant from the railway, with- 
out waggon-roads or regular communication by the Amu Darya; 
the rapid growth of new needs afhong natives served by the 
railway; the difficulty in the cultivation of American cotton 
owing to the uncertainty of water supply; and the truly Ori- 
ental carelessness of the Bokharan Government regarding its 
products — for example, twenty-five years ago the silkworm in- 
dustry flourished and is now in decay. When these conditions, 
however, are removed, Bokhara will once more be in a position 
to export in proportion to its imports, for, thanks to the railway, 
which carries wheat at the very low rate of i/iooth of a kopeck 
per poud per verst, grain can be bought as cheaply as it can be 
grown, and the land thus left free for more valuable crops. More- 
over, as in 1893-4, the railway will render famine from bad har- 
vests impossible. The principal new objects which the railway has 
taught the natives to use are kerosene, building materials, passe- 
menterie, and stearine candles. The consumption of these arti- 
cles increases regularly, but with the exception of candles, which 
go as far as Afghanistan, they do not yet reach nearly the whole 
of the Khanate. 



294 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

Before the railway came, capital could hardly turn over once 
a year, because of the difficulty of communications with Europe, 
and therefore Russian commerce was confined to a few wealthy 
Bokharan merchants. But now that goods can be delivered in 
Moscow in from 35 to 40 days, direct relations are possible even 
to small capitalists, and the natives take every advantage of this, 
with the result that competition is very keen and the people en- 
joy the lowest possible prices. The establishment of elementary 
processes of manufacture, on the other hand, such as cleaning, 
packing, tanning, has quadrupled wages, and cultivated land has 
risen enormously in value. My Bokharan authority claims, and 
rightly, I think, that the two facts (i) that a total annual trade of 
£3,000,000 is done by a population of 3,000,000 souls, one half of 
whom take no part whatever either in producing or purchasing; 
and (2) that the imports are 3,000,000 roubles more in value than 
the exports, show that the trade of Bokhara must necessarily 
increase largely, as soon as the conditions which prevent the 
greater part of the mountainous regions of the Khanate from 
taking any share in the commerce with European Russia are 
changed. It is confidently held, too, that the mountainous dis- 
tricts of Bokhara are the natural half-way house of trade between 
Moscow and Afghanistan. At present there are no direct rela- 
tions, although Bokharan merchants bring every year a certain 
amount of produce, chiefly karakul, from Afghanistan and send 
it to the fair of Nijni Novgorod, paying for it in iron, cotton, 
sugar and candles, but the natural trade route to Kabul, well- 
known to the Afghans, runs through Bokhara, and therefore 
in the future Russian manufactures should be exchanged for 
Afghan raw materials via Bokhara. Then Bokhara will stand to 
Afghanistan in a relation similar to that of Trans-Caspia to Per- 
sia, but more favourably, for whereas Trans-Caspia trades with 
only one province, Khorassan, Bokhara will exchange with the 
whole rich and densely populated northern part of Afghanistan, 
beginning with Kabul, which has an area equal to the whole of 



NEW BOKHARA AND ITS PROSPECTS 295 

Bokhara, and which, when the roads are somewhat improved, 
will be able to seek an outlet for its products in Bokhara, rather 
than send them over the difficult mountains to the south, to find 
a market in the direction of Kandahar. So, at least, they believe 
in Bokhara, but apart from other considerations, it is obvious 
that the development of a trade route over the Murghab branch 
line to Kushk and Herat, if England and Russia should agree 
upon it, would upset most of their calculations. 

There is one other industry that should be mentioned, for 
although it has only just been started, its success — and the few 
who have invested in it have a firm faith in its future — would 
have an enormous influence upon the development of Bok- 
hara. I refer to gold-mining. It would seem inherently prob- 
able that in such a mountainous country as a large part of 
Bokhara minerals would be found, and gold in paying quantities 
may well be among them. Two Russian commercial residents 
have begun the work of seriously developing one district known 
to be gold-bearing. Their mine is 530 miles from Bokhara city, 
and at present can only be reached on horseback. They hold a 
concession of seven properties, each two versts square, and one 
of these they are working. They have reached the gold-bearing 
stratum at a depth of fifteen metres, and they were getting one 
zolotnik of gold from every hundred pouds of dirt washed — say 
2 dwt. to the ton. They pay the Amir a royalty of five per cent, 
of the gold produced, and an annual rent of about two shillings 
an acre. Against the small returns of gold may be set the fact 
that labour is plentiful and wages are from sixpence to eight- 
pence a day, and that there is abundance of water. The owners 
of this concession are very anxious to get foreign capital to help 
them to prove and develop their six remaining properties. 

My lady readers may like to know something of the origin 
of the fur which becomes them so well, known to them as " astra- 
chan " (Astrakhan used to be its port of entry into Russia) or 
" Persian lamb," and to those who produce it as karakul. It is 



agG ALL THE RUSSIAS 

the skin of the very young lamb — not of the unborn lamb, as is 
commonly believed — and the best comes from Afghanistan. Its 
high cost is due to the heavy export duty the Amir of Afghanistan 
places upon it, which his subjects regularly try to evade by smug- 
gling. In Bokhara the Afghan skins are mixed in parcels of ten 
with inferior local skins, and thence they go to Novgorod, to 
Moscow and especially to the great annual fur fair of the world 
at Leipzig. Only the best are kept for sale in Central Asia, 
and for these the Russian dealers give about 32 roubles — £3. 7s., 
$16.50 — for ten skins, though the best single skin will fetch as 
much as fifteen shillings — $3.60. I bought excellent grey skins 
in Tiflis at the rate of 28 roubles for ten. Another curious Bok- 
haran export, of which also those who use it do not guess the 
source, is sheep's guts, prepared for violin strings under the 
supervision of Russian workmen. 

I remarked above that the natives had imported for them- 
selves since the railway came, and that prices of European goods 
rule very low in Bokhara. This is partly due to a very peculiar 
system of trading which prevails there. There is now only one 
firm of Russian importers in the city, and the native merchants, 
the Sarts, have been accustomed to conduct their business as 
follows. They go to Moscow themselves, give their orders, get 
long credit, return to Bokhara, sell their goods for less than they 
paid for them, and invest the cash thus raised in cotton or silk 
or skins. In a good year their profits cover their loss and leave 
a handsome balance. In a bad year they fail and pay fifteen or 
twenty kopecks on the rouble. The Moscow merchants know 
that when a man has paid for four or five years in succession he 
is sure to go under, but their profits have been so good that if 
they were paid for four years they could well afiford to lose the 
fifth. Now, however, the Trans-Siberian Railway has given 
them so much more to do that they care less about Central 
Asian trade and are refusing the old long credit. 



CHAPTER XX 

OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 

"TT has eleven gates, and a circumference of fifteen English 
X rniles; three hundred and sixty mosques, twenty-two cara- 
vanserays, many baths and bazaars, and the old palace called Ark, 
built by Arslan Khan one thousand years ago, and has about 
one hundred splendid colleges." So wrote of old Bokhara that 
singular divine, the Rev. Dr. Woliif, sixty years ago, one of the 
very few Europeans to visit it before the conquering Russian 
army, a witness to whom I shall presently recur. Like all the 
East, alas, Bokhara is no longer what it was, but it is a mightily 
impressive city all the same. And the more so because it is among 
the rare places where the Oriental does not cringe to the white 
face. One notices a distinct difference in the attitude of the 
natives toward foreigners here, from that of the Turkomans of 
Trans-Caspia and the Sarts of Samarkand. The Turkomans were 
crushed by Skobelef at Geok Tepe once for all; they will never 
lift a hand again. The Sarts are urban and mercantile people, 
and are wholly resigned to the present regime. The Bokharans, 
on the other hand, are still nominally a free race. They see few 
strangers, and they dislike them intensely. As you go about the 
crowded narrow streets of Bokhara you meet with studied in- 
difference or black looks, except from the Jews, and it is easy 
to see that indiscreet action would provoke instant reprisals 
against yourself. This is one reason why the Russian authorities 
do not encourage visitors to Bokhara, and indeed some passports 
issued for Central Asia include it with the Murghab branch of 

the railway as a forbidden place. 

297 



apS 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



When I was there the new branch line from the Russian 
settlement to the native city was not built, so I drove eight miles 
along a flat, dull, dusty road, passing to the left the new palace 
the Russians are building for the Amir — a handsome heterogene- 
ous sort of structure, half Oriental, half European — and to the 
left an old palace completely hidden behind high mud walls. 
Midway we stopped at a roadside hovel with a big water-trough 
in front, and while the horses drank, the owner brought out 
a great gourd water-pipe, with a red charcoal on top, and passed 
it to my driver, who drew one deep inhalation and passed it to 



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H^^fttfLikS^^^^I 


i 


gg «Bi«w '!"!"i"f "M^^I^^^^HH 


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City and Citadel, Bokhara. 

another driver, who handed it to a third, and so on till it had 
been used by the half-dozen teamsters watering their beasts there. 
No man even wiped the mouthpiece as it passed from mouth to 
mouth. I mention this incident because it goes some way 
toward justifying the statement of a Russian physician quoted 
to me, that eighty per cent, of the inhabitants of Bokhara sufifer 
from the worst of contagious diseases. 

The approach to the centre of the city is through a great 
gateway in the wall, and then by long, narrow streets, between 
high walls. In the true fashion of the East, where domestic- 



OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 299 

ity is of all things most secret, the houses all look inwards, 
presenting blank backs, broken only by a huge door, to the 
passers-by. After a mile or more of these you reach the great 
covered bazaar, with charming corners where mulberry trees 
drop their fat berries into shaded ponds, and gossiping men sit 
sipping coffee or green tea and smoking the inevitable kalian. 
Already the convenient Russian samovar is in general use, and 
indeed is made here. Each trade has its own street. Workmen 
in leather, in iron, brass, tin, are hard at it, stitching, grinding, 
riveting, hammering, with ah the strange labour-saving dodges 
of the machine-less East. Much of the bazaar is under a heavy 
vaulted roof, and here the more valuable articles are exposed — 
books, stuffs, the embroidered skull-caps worn by all, the gay 
silk khalats, the universal outer garment like a dressing-gown, 
rolls of rainbow-like watered silk from native looms, carpets, 
cottons and crockery from Moscow, exquisite kiirgans, ewers of 
chased and hammered brass — irresistible to the foreign visitor, 
the most characteristic and interesting objects here. The money- 
changers are as usual conspicuous — Hindus, with the orange 
flame-shaped caste marks on their foreheads, great heaps of little 
brass coins and big lumps of silver before them, and a stock of 
the beautiful Bokharan gold coins in leather bags tucked into 
their breasts. The Jews are in evidence everywhere, recognisable 
by their drab khalats, square hats trimmed with fur, and the cord 
round their waists. Anti-Semitism has always reigned in Bok- 
hara, and every Jew is compelled to wear a cord round his waist. 
The original intention was that this should be a genuine piece of 
rope, but the Jew of to-day obeys the letter and escapes the spirit 
of the proscription by wearing a thin silk cord, or if he is poor, 
just a little bit of string. 

Twelve or fourteen years ago this bazaar was filled with Eng- 
lish goods, but the Russians deliberately set about killing that 
trade, and the long credits of the Moscow merchants helped. 
Now nothing is EngHsh but the fine muslin used for the volu- 



300 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



minous turbans (in Persia for shrouding the dead), which Mos- 
cow cannot make. The native velvet of briUiant colours running- 
one into the other, greatly admired by the Bokharan, though 
thin and poor in quality, is from 14 to 17J inches wide, and costs 
from three to four shillings the arshin (28 inches). The watered 
rainbow silk of the same width costs about 2s. the arshin. After 




The Portal of the Palace, Bokhara. 



long haggling I bought a beautiful brass kurgan, fifteen inches 
high, for six roubles. 

Sunday is bazaar day in Bokhara, and the crowd is extraor- 
dinary. The road from stall to stall is packed with men and 
beasts and carts, each man shouting to all the others to get out 
of his way, and belabouring the nearest beast. For those on 
foot it is one congested jostle. The mounted are of many 
kinds: big men on Httle asses — often with veiled women sitting 
behind them; boys astride asses' cruppers with sacks before 



OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 301 

them; proud cavaliers, magnificent in multicoloured silk and 
velvet, on splendid horses of Arab-like breed from Turkestan; 
camels with silent feet and horrid face high above all and pushing 
ruthlessly through; every now and then one of the Amir's officers, 
followed by his suite, preceded by grooms on foot smartly clearing 
a way with sticks; then suddenly the hatcha, thrust close by the 
crowd, staring curiously at you with wise old eyes in a child's 
face — the scene entrances till you weary of it, which is soon. 
The charm of the East is in its mysteries, its thoughts unuttered, 
its opinions veiled, its eloquent silence, the strange things it 
knows and does not tell : this noise and pushing are of the West 
you know. Besides, there is too much horror here — the hot 
smallpox marks, the unmistakable pallor of the leper, the dirty 
bandage where the Bokharan worm has been pulled from the 
flesh, the feature rotted away from unnamable evil, the mutila- 
tion from gangrenous wound or judicial torture. You shoulder 
your way to a side-street, in a few minutes the bazaar is only a 
distant surf-like murmur, and you venture a deep breath again. 

The hatcha of whom I have spoken is one of the peculiarities 
of Samarkand. He is the singing and dancing boy, correspond- 
ing to the geisha of Japan. It is needless to inquire very closely 
into his career, which depends upon his looks and gifts, and not 
infrequently brings him wealth by the time his beard comes and 
he '' retires," but it is an interesting and instructive fact about 
Bokharan life that a number of high oflicials to-day were for- 
merly hatchas, and I was told that during my visit there were 
hardly any left in the city, as the Amir had sent for them all! 
While I had lunch a carpet was spread in the courtyard and a 
band of hatchas was brought to dance and sing. The natives took 
the greatest possible interest in the performance, crowding in, 
and appearing on every housetop around, but it seemed to me a 
dull show. The singing, which, perhaps fortunately, I did not 
understand, showed a certain amount of training, but the so- 
called dancing seemed aimless, and some of the band were of the 



302 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



most repulsive ugliness. Doubtless for a performance before an 
infidel, in broad daylight, these epicene artists did not give the 
rein to their passion, as otherwise it would be impossible to ex- 
plain the mad admiration and devotion they excite among their 

native patrons. But they would 
not come for less than twenty 
roubles, all the same, and they 
were very dear at the money. 
As Mr. Skrine truly remarks, 
the European never feels more 
acutely the gulf between East 
and West than when he wit- 
nesses the enthusiasm excited by 
the mimic passions of such a 
scene. My illustration is a pho- 
tograph I took at the time of 
an extremely popular batcha. I 
have always been greatly inter- 
ested in native dances, and often 
found them repay careful study, 
but Bokhara contributed little to 
my notes on this subject — not to 
be compared for a moment to the charming dancing of Japan, 
or that most wonderful and eloquent dance I witnessed and 
photographed in Seoul, the capital of Korea.* 

Every respectable woman in Bokhara goes of course veiled, 
and her veil is of horsehair thick and long enough totally to 
obliterate her personality. Nothing but the little pointed toe of 
a scarlet or green boot, or a mudplastered shapeless extremity, 
betrays the presence behind the veil of a woman whose looks 
still justify coquetry, or of a poor old labouring hag. The 
unveiled ladies have a street to themselves, where they sit on 

* See "The Real Japan," Chapter IX., and " The Peoples and Politics of the Far 
East," p. 354 s(/^. 




A "Batcha" of Bokhara. 



OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 



303 



their balconies in velvet robes and weighed down with cheap 
metal ornaments. As they offer the only opportunity of see- 
ing what the women of this country look like, I took advan- 
tage once of having a Cossack with me to get him to gather 
a little group of them together to be photographed — with 
the result you see. They thought it great fun, and were 





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m.i^^^'^ r§ ^ ' 


m :ii 


fM Hi 


PHI 




c .H 




'•* ^titHKSKKKfKHKKl^^^^^ 



The Unveiled Ladies of Bokhara. 



made very happy with a rouble or two and some handfuls of 
cigarettes. 

Bokhara is the focus of Mahommedanism in Central Asia, 
since its teaching here is free of all Christian interference. There- 
fore the madrassas, or theological colleges, are still the homes of 
devotion and fanaticism, and enjoy all their original prestige. 
Therefore, also, a Christian cannot enter them. But their original 
architectural beauty has vanished, for the two chief ones, which 



304 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

face each other in the middle of the town, were once covered 
with exquisite blue tiles and are now meanly repaired with great 
patches of mortar. At one mosque in Bokhara two thousand 
worshippers can pray at once. Another has a facade entirely 
formed of delicately carved wood, now of that beautiful greyness 
which untouched wood takes on with age. In front of it there 
is a quiet spot where willows and birches droop over a trickling 
fountain, and here an old man in a bright yellow khalat, seated 
upon a low square stool, was reading aloud ancient Asian history 
to scattered groups of deeply attentive listeners. From time to 
time one of them would rise, walk by the reader and drop a coin 
for him, and silently disappear, while others would as silently join 
the circle. I stood a long time watching this scene, held by its 
charm, the monotonous voice of the reader, and the remoteness 
of it all from one's own world. The genuine untouched East, 
exactly the same to-day as it was a thousand years ago, is rare 
now. 

I had not been in the city an hour, on my first visit, before 
there was a commotion in the crowd and a huge old gentleman 
in a brilliant striped khalat, mounted on a fine horse and followed 
by several attendants, came pushing his way through the crowd, 
careless of whom he trod upon or knocked aside. It was evident 
from the demeanour of the people that he inspired respect if not 
fear, so when he reined up sharply by me and began to address me 
volubly, I was prepared for some sort of a scene. It turned out 
that he was the chief of police, and that he had been despatched 
by the Khus Begi, the ruler of the city in the Amir's absence, to 
fi'nd the foreigner reported to be in the bazaar, and request him 
to present himself at once at the palace. I have had so many of 
these dreary receptions, and my time was being so much more 
interestingly occupied, that I made every excuse I could think of. 
I was not fittingly dressed to wait upon his mightiness, my time 
was very short, I begged the policeman to present my respects 
and excuses, and so on. But it was of no use, and the worthy 



OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 305 

man became so insistent that I saw it would be discreet to comply 
without further delay. 

The nondescript '' palace " to which we made our way may be 
better judged from my illustration than described. It is the old 
''Ark," built in 1742, and the clock between its towers was 
the ransom an Italian prisoner gave for his life. The slope 
leading to it was lined with soldiery, wearing black astrachan 
hats, black tunics, scarlet trousers and high boots, and groups 
of officials eyed us curiously and without any obvious ap- 
proval. The actual entrance behind the towers is up a narrow 
sloping passage, evidently made to admit a horse, with queer dark 
cell-like rooms off it at intervals — the sleeping quarters of the 
soldiers, and perhaps places of detention also. At last we were 
ushered into an ante-chamber, beyond which was a kind of 
banqueting-room, and in the former we were immediately joined 
by that redoubtable personage, the Chief of the Falconers him- 
self. He was a short, enormously fat man, with a patriarchal 
white beard, a colossal white turban, and a splendid khalat of 
flowered white silk. A native interpreter, speaking Russian, ac- 
companied him, so our conversation was done at two removes, 
through my own interpreter. He greeted me with a string of 
profuse and variegated compliments, and begged me to partake 
of refreshments. As soon as we entered the adjoining chamber 
I saw that I should be lucky if I escaped in a couple of hours, for 
a most elaborate and picturesque dastarkhan, or spread of sweet- 
meats of every kind, was on the table, too obviously the prelude to 
a corresponding feast. And so it proved, the troop of servants 
swept away course after course, the well-known shasJiIik, the 
shiirpa, boiled mutton with rice, the kavardik, ragoiit of mutton 
and onions, the kebab, grilled knobs of mutton, and the profusion 
of fruit and sugary cakes; while finding that I did not drink the 
sweet champagne very fast out of one glass they tried the 
hospitable but ineffective expedient of filling several glasses with 
it and placing them temptingly within reach of my hand. 



3o6 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

The conversation was of a similar sugary character. I asked 
after his Highness Sayid Abdul Ahad, and if he was soon coming 
to Bokhara. I was informed that he was very busy but that he 
would soon come to conduct affairs of state. The Khus Begi 
hoped '' my Queen " was in good health, and that the war in 
which she was engaged was progressing well. I was thankful 
to say the Queen was well, and I hoped the war would soon have 
a victorious issue. War, remarked my host, was a terrible thing. 
I agreed, and asked how trade in Bokhara was. Thanks to the 
wisdom and kindness of the Russians in bringing the railway, 
it was excellent (O hypocrite!). I begged that my respectful 
greetings might be conveyed to the Amir, with an expression of 
my profound regret that I had not been able to present my com- 
pliments in person. A special courier should instantly be de- 
spatched to his Highness, I was assured, to carry my message. 
This, I afterwards heard, was actually done, not of course for 
anything of the sort, but doubtless to tell him that a foreigner 
had arrived, that he had been summoned to the palace and enter- 
tained with food and fair words, and ascertained to be a harmless 
Englishman, who had duly paid homage to the great Amir. At 
every compliment, or whenever our eyes met, the Khuz Begi 
rose, passed his hand slowly down his beard (the conventional 
salaam, refusal to perform which cost poor Stoddart his life), 
and bowed profoundly, I of course doing the same. The scene 
would have been a great success on the stage, I think — at least I 
had to adjure my Russian companion not to laugh. As a matter 
of fact, it was rather a shocking farce, for he regarded me as an 
accursed Christian dog, thrusting my nose into places where I 
had no business, and was doubtless reflecting that but for those 
other accursed Russians he would promptly have dropped me 
among the sheep-ticks, preparatory to letting my blood run 
down the gutters of the bazaar; while I certainly regarded 
him as an old monster, given up to the beastliest vices, and 
crafty and cruel and rapacious beyond words. We parted 



OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 307 

with an outburst of compliments and affectionate assurances 
which deceived neither of us. This is one aspect of Eastern 
travel. If there were much of it, and nothing else, few 
people would go to the East except for trade or sword in 
hand. 

As we were conducted down the passage I noticed hanging 
near the entrance a great club and an enormous whip. The for- 
mer is said to have come from Mecca, and the latter to be the 
whip of the immortal Rustum himself. Outside, a crowd had 




The Street Grimacer of Bokhara. 



gathered, and an official made a way for me with his stick. In the 
middle a tall native was holding forth at a great rate about a 
young fellow in a blue tunic, who illustrated the different phases 
of the patter with an appalling grimace, greeted by the spectators 
with shouts of delighted laughter. Never have I seen such a 
countenance on a human being. The fellow's mouth seemed 
made of india-rubber, and inserting a finger of each hand into the 
corners he pulled and stretched it and apparently wound it round 
his ears and opened it till you could have inserted a good-sized 
melon. It was a quaint scene, as my photograph shows, proving 



3o8 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



that the natural man finds pleasure in unnatural things, alike in 

Central Asia and on Epsom Downs. 

High above everything else in Bokhara towers the Minar 

Kalan, the great tower of punishment. It is built of flat red 

bricks, and its graceful 
proportions have not suf- 
fered at all from the effects 
of time. At the top, as 
will be seen, it widens into 
a kind of campanile, set 
with oblong windows, and 
at its foot there is a de- 
pression which looks as if 
it had been scraped out 
of the ground. From one 
of these windows con- 
demned criminals, trussed 
like fowls, were pushed 
out, and this depression 
is where generations of 
them fell. One of the last 
Europeans to witness the 
horrid sight before the 
Russians stopped it for 
ever was M. Moser, the 
well-known French trav- 
eller in Central Asia, who 
spent some time in Bok- 
hara, but almost as a pris- 
oner in his house, for he 

could not go about the city without an escort. Speaking of dull 

days thus spent he writes : '' Comme distraction, je voyais, les 

jours de bazar, des paquets, jetes du haut du Manarkalan, tour- 

noyer dans Fair." 




The Tower of Executions, Bokhara. 



OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 309 

The prison of Bokhara possesses an irresistible fascination 
for anybody who knows the history of Central Asia, and I fear 
I looked forward to visiting this more than any other place there. 
It was the scene of three of the most horrible and lonely martyr- 
doms that Englishmen have ever been called upon to suffer in 
the cause of Empire. The story is forgotten now, but cannot 
be separated from the place. 

In 1840 Colonel Stoddart, of the Indian army, was sent by 
the British Government on a mission to Bokhara, to make cer- 
tain political arrangements with the Amir Nasrullah. He was 
discourteously received, and appears to have acted with indis- 
cretion. When he was requested to make the usual salaam 
before the Amir, he drew his sword — a gross affront, and when 
a message was brought to him from the Amir he is said to have 
replied with the Oriental insult, '' Eat dung ! " At any rate 
he was on the worst terms with the Amir, and was eventually 
thrown into prison. Later Captain Arthur Conolly, also of the 
Indian army, a man of singular beauty of character and con- 
spicuous piety, was despatched by the Indian Government to 
Khokand and Khiva, with orders to proceed afterwards to Bok- 
hara, to place himself under the orders of Stoddart and assist 
the latter in any way necessary. He duly reached Bokhara, 
and shared Stoddart's treatment. Then darkness fell upon the 
fate of the two envoys. The last authentic news of them, up 
to September, 1843, was contained in two letters from Conolly 
to his brother John, himself a hostage in Kabul, and told of 
their situation in the summer of 1842 : 

''For four months they had no change of raiment; their 
dungeon was in a most filthy and unwholesome state, and teemed 
with vermin to a degree that rendered life a burden. Stoddart 
was reduced to a skeleton, and his body was covered with putrid 
sores. They had, with great difficulty, prevailed upon one of 
their keepers to represent their wretched condition to the King, 
and were then awaiting his reply, having committed themselves 



3IO ALL THE RUSSIAS 

to God, in the full assurance that unless soon released, death 
must shortly terminate their sufferings." 

The British and Indian governments — to their shame be it 
said, unless there were circumstances one does not know — took 
no steps to discover what had become of their envoys, and, 
indeed, placed obstacles in the way of several officers who 
volunteered to risk the journey to Bokhara, by forbidding 
them to wear their uniforms and refusing them official cre- 
dentials. 

At this point a quaint hero stepped forward, in the per- 
son of Joseph Wolff, D.D., LL.D. This worthy man had al- 
ready lived through experiences strange enough, one would have 
thought, to satisfy the most adventurous. Born a Jew, he had 
become a Roman Catholic, turned Protestant, publicly protested 
against the Pope in Rome, and been escorted out of the city 
by twenty-five gendarmes. He joined the Church of England, 
studied at Cambridge, and then, with two objects, the conver- 
sion of his fellow-Jews and the discovery of the Ten Lost Tribes 
of the Dispersion, he had preached a defiant and polemical gos- 
pel all over the East, challenging the learned everywhere to 
dispute with him in many tongues. Amongst other remote and 
dangerous lands his missionary zeal had carried him, in 1830, 
even to Bokhara, where he " underwent much rigid questioning 
from the Goosh Bekee " — a fact eloquent enough in itself of the 
stuff he was made of. Then he settled down as curate of High 
Hoyland, in Yorkshire; but unable to pass rich on £60 a year, he 
had taken his wife and son to live in Bruges. With a courage 
not to be over-praised he decided to make the perilous attempt 
to rescue the two officers, the younger of whom he knew per- 
sonally and greatly esteemed, or at least to place their fate 
beyond doubt, and in July, 1843, he inserted a letter in the 
Morning Herald, addressed to all the officers of the British army, 
calling for companions or funds to help him in the enterprise. 
" I merely want," he wrote, '' the expenses of my journey, and 



OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 311 

not one single farthing as a compensation, even in case of 
complete success." The money was found, chiefly by a Captain 
Grover, one of the ofificers to whom, as narrated above, the 
government had refused official countenance; instructions were 
given to all British representatives on his route to afford him 
help; he left London on October 14, 1843; reached Bokhara 
after many adventures and in spite of the gravest warnings of 




The Approach to the Prison, Bokhara. 



his certain fate; was detained there a prisoner for a long time; 
refused to embrace Islam and finally abandoned all hope of 
escaping the executioner; was only allowed to go at last in 
consequence of letters demanding his release being sent to the 
Amir by the Shah of Persia; was in such a condition when he 
reached EngHsh friends again in Persia that he wrote: " For 
five days poor Colonel Williams was engaged in putting the 



312 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



vermin off my body; " and arrived back in London on April 
12, 1845.* 

His journey established the fact that the two men he sought 
to rescue had been murdered three months before he started, 
and also that a third British ofBcer, Lieutenant Wyburd, had 
been killed by the Amir. '' For the quietude of soul of the 
friends of those murdered ofhcers, Colonel Stoddart and Cap- 
tain Conolly," wrote 
Dr. Wolff, "I have 
to observe that they 
were both of them 
cruelly slaughtered 
at Bokhara, after suf- 
fering agonies from 
confinement in prison 
of the most fearful 
character — masses of 
their flesh having 
been gnaw^ed off 
their bones by ver- 
min — in 1843." The 
fate of the unhappy 
envoys had indeed 
been almost the 
cruellest conceivable. 
They had been kept 
long in prison, sub- 
ject to every privation, their hopes being constantly raised 
by sham negotiations with the Amir, and several times they 
had been led to execution and taken back to prison. On 
one of these occasions they had been offered their lives if they 
would embrace Islam. The younger man boldly professed 




The Prison Gate and the Gaoler, Bokhara. 



* By a curious slip his own narrative gives the date of his start wrongly as October^ 
1844, instead of 1843. 



OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 313 

his faith in the eye of death, but in a moment of weak- 
ness, for which he needs no forgiveness, the elder aposta- 
tised. That they were confined in a dungeon-pit infested 
with sheep-ticks — the reader who has ever seen a sheep-tick may 
supply the adjectives — seems certain, though it may be a fable 
that these insects were fed with meat in readiness for the human 
prey supplied to them from time to time. xA.t last they were 
taken out and their heads cut off in pubHc, but not before 
Stoddart had denounced Islam and declared that he died, as he 
had lived, in the faith of his fathers. Of Conolly's end Dr. 
Wolff finely wrote: '' His firm conduct at his dying hour re- 
minds us forcibly of the bearing of those brave soldiers who 
died in the persecutions of Decius and Diocletian. I hope to 
see my Conolly among them at the hour of Christ's coming 
in glory." 

As the British Government had done nothing to save its 
emissaries, so it did nothing to punish their murderer. But the 
Reverend Joseph Wolff was not without justification when he 
said: ''I have given such proofs to my Jewish friends of my 
sincerity of belief, as I may say without boasting no other Jew- 
ish convert has yet done. Independent of this, my nation saw 
that the Jew was prepared to risk his Hfe to save the Gentile." 
Shalom leka ! * 

All this was vividly in my memory when I set out for the 
old prison of Bokhara. The palace, or as it should rather be 
termed, the citadel or fort, stands upon a low hill, said to be 
artificial, and is surrounded by a high mud-wall. Skirting 

♦ Dr. Wolflf subsequently became vicar of Isle Brewers, in Somerset, and remained 
there till his death. The Rev. Mr. Cole, the present vicar, courteously informs me 
that he is buried in the church-yard under a marble cross with this most modest in- 
scription : "Joseph Wolff, Vicar of Isle Brewers. Born Nov. 9th, 1795. Died May 
2nd, 1862. The Lord Jesus Christ was his only hope of Salvation." It is equally re- 
markable and regrettable that his monument bears no allusion to his life of missionary 
zeal, or to the act of Christian heroism which was its climax. 



314 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



this, one comes at its eastern side to the foot of a mound, 
upon which there is a walled enclosure reached by a winding 
road and entered through a massive gate-way of brick, now 
dilapidated. This is the Zindan, or state prison, and it faces 
the wall of the citadel. The gaoler came out to meet me and 
I shivered at the thought of those at his mercy. He was an 
old man, very fat, with a long white beard, dressed all in white, 
and his cruel, leering face was an epitome of the vices. Expec- 
tation of a present made him obsequious, but from his wicked 




The Door of the Great Prison. 



grin it was easy to guess that he would have been better pleased 
to receive me under quite different circumstances. For twenty- 
seven years, he said, he had been in charge of the prison. The 
square door-way admits to a kind of vaulted guard-room, in 
which soldiers and a few ugly natives were sitting and lounging. 
On the walls were plastered pieces of paper on which texts from 
the Koran were roughly engrossed, and below them hung a 
fine collection of chains and handcufifs. Beyond the guard-room 
was a small yard, and two sides of it were formed by the fronts 
of the two separate prisons — one of brick, and comparatively 



OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 315 

new, the other of mud, low and old, below^ the level of the yard, 
its thick doors of worm-eaten wood fastened at the top by an 
antediluvian padlock. The door of the new prison was opened 
and I entered alone. It was a good-sized chamber, lighted by 
little barfed windows near the roof, its floor covered with men. 
A row of them sat round the wall, for the simple reason that 
they were chained there, while others had spread their miserable 
quilts so as to fill every inch of space, and sat and lay in all sorts 
of attitudes to get rehef for their limbs without touching their 
neighbours. The moment they realised that a foreigner had 
come, they broke out into all sorts of petitions, a dozen talking 
at once. Doubtless they took me for a Russian official, wha 
could have interfered on their behalf. One poor wretch ran 
across and fell on his knees, seizing me by the leg and reiterat- 
ing in all the Russian he knew that he was a Samarkand man, 
and therefore a Russian subject — '' Ya Samarkand cheloviek! 
Ya Samarkand cheloviek! " It was a shocking sight, and I con- 
fess I approached the door of the old prison with misgiving. A 
soldier undid the padlock and stood aside for me to enter. I 
took one step and then stopped. 

The room was almost dark, two deep steps led down into 
it, it was crowded with men like beasts in a pen, a stifling reek 
issued, and heavy chains rattled as those wearing them turned 
to see who was entering. For a moment I hesitated, then a 
thin broken voice said Jialf reproachfully, in Russian : " Please 
come in — please! " and I stepped down into the inferno. The 
spectacle was such as one does not easily forget. The room 
was smaller than the other, and without any opening to the 
outer air except the door, and it was even more crowded. As 
my eyes grew accustomed to the light I saw that most of the 
inmates were chained, and others were evidently only free for 
the day, for behind them were the rings in the wall to which 
they were chained at night. Chains on the hands, chains on 
the feet, even chains round the necks, and some of them with 



3i6 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



a big iron collar and chained by it to the wall. Poor, pale, hag- 
gard wretches — utterly ignorant of what might happen to them, 
never knowing when the door opened that it was not the execu- 
tioner come to take them to the bazaar. Among them were 
men evidently well-to-do, for they were dressed in clothes that 
had once been good, and their mats had once been the clean 
beds of prosperous men. They were almost beyond hope; few 
spoke to me except to beg for bread and water; several took 
no notice of me whatever, but the moment the door had opened 




The Horror of Horrors, Bokhara. 



and let in a little light they had pulled copies of the Koran out 
of their dress and were reading it fast as long as the light lasted. 
One man seemed to take a sardonic satisfaction in my evident 
horror, for he made a way for me across the floor and invited 
me by gestures to enter a second chamber, through a low door- 
way in the wall. I remembered that the vermin-pit was said 
to have been within a second chamber in the old prison, so I 
overcame my repugnance and entered. The inner room was 
like the outer, but its human inmates were in even a worse 



OLD BOKHARA AND ITS HORRORS 317 

state, and it is needless to dwell more on filth and horror. The 
earthen floor sank in the middle — the pit that was here has 
been filled up. 

This, then, was probably the scene of the long agony of 
Stoddart and the gentle Conolly. Within these very walls the 
two Englishmen, thinking on the spotlessness and the honour 
of home, on their comrades and friends, on the women who 
loved them and were breaking their hearts for them — or were 
finding consolation, if time had tried troth too high — on the gov- 
ernment that had sent them and had apparently washed its hands 
of them, starved with hunger, sickened with dirt, gnawed alive by 
burrowing vermin, had prayed first for life and then at last for 
death. But even this poignant memory could not displace the 
present horror. There is this truth in the Roman playwright's 
f^ immortal remark, that the degradation of one human being, 
'^ whether inflicted or self-procured, degrades humanity. I was 
haunted for weeks by the face of a man I once saw in prison 
who had just been flogged, and to me, who hate to see a lark 
in a cage or a monkey tied to an organ, the sight of all these 
men, with hopes and fears and affections like my own in kind, 
positively chained in rows, robbed of every vestige of human 
rights, was awful. All I could do was to buy bread for them 
all, and stand by till I saw they really had it, and distribute some 
handfuls of small coin, in the hope that it would afford a grain 
of alleviation of their lot. How long had most of them been 
there? I asked the old gaoler. Some just come in — some for 
years. Had they all been tried? Some had — some had not. 
What were they chiefly condemned to? Some to stay in prison 
— some to death. Would some of them be freed? The old man 
smiled. I knew what he meant — it depended upon whether 
they, or their relatives, could find money to bribe others and 
him. When would the condemned ones be executed? God 
alone knew. 

If the round earth has a spot upon which hope can find no 



3i8 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

foothold, that spot would seem to be the prison of Old Bok- 
hara. Yet as I looked back I saw that a gipsy woman had 
followed me in, and that — the soldier at the gaol-door being 
too interested to shut it — a group of eager prisoners had gath- 
ered round the step, and she was telling their fortunes for the 
coppers I had given them. 



CHAPTER XXI 
SAMARKAND AND BEYOND 

AFTER Athens, Rome, and Constantinople, I should rank 
Samarkand as the most interesting city in the world. A 
volume might be filled with descriptions of all its sights, but 
fortunately my photographs, which I venture to think are of 
unusual interest, tell the greater part of what one would wish to 
say. It lies 2,000 feet above the sea, and is a desert of narrow 
streets and silent, mud-coloured houses, surrounded by an earthly 
paradise of fertile fields, rich vineyards, and blossoming gardens, 
recalling at once a certain clever imitation of Omar Khayyam — 

What though the Book you cannot understand ? 
Drink while the Cup stands ready to your hand ; 

Drink, and declare the summer roses blow 
As red m London as in Samarkand. 

In its midst is the inevitable bazaar, crowded from morning till 
night by dense crowds of haggling purchasers and gossipers, 
through which a ceaseless stream of men and women on horses, 
donkeys, and camels push their way with the greatest difficulty. 
As in Bokhara, one section is devoted to cloth, another to silk, 
another to leather, another to arms, another to metal-work, and 
the most interesting of all to manuscripts. Here I was brought 
all sorts of strange volumes to buy, and although this market 
had been ransacked of late for rare treatises I could not help feel- 
ing that only my ignorance of their contents prevented me se- 
curing some manuscript of value. But probably my ignorance 
also preserved me from less pleasant discoveries, for much of the 

319 



320 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

reading matter that delights the East would produce a very dif- 
ferent impression upon a western mind. 

It is the marvellous ruins of Samarkand, however, that give 
the city its extraordinary interest. Alexander the Great paused 
here; long afterward China made it into a great capital; then 
Mohammedanism, destined to conquer from China to Turkey, 
converted it into the best loved and most admired spot of the 
world. Genghiz Khan destroyed it with fire and sword in 12 19, 
and more than a century later Timur, the lame Tartar — Tmiur 
Lcng, whence our " Tamerlane " — anticipated tfie beauty and 
the fame of Athens here, and adorned it with the " grandest 
monuments of Islam," whose ruins to-day, six centuries later, 
are worth the long journey to the heart of Asia to see. They 
surround the Rigistan, or market-place, and consist of several 
madrassas, or colleges, Timur's tomb, his wife's mausoleum, 
and one wonderful mosque. The madrassa called Shir Dar, or 
" the Lion-Bearing," from the Lion and the Sun of Persia enam- 
elled upon it, stands on the eastern side of the great square, and 
that known as Tila Kari, or the Golden, from the gold plating 
with which it was once covered, on the north. To their splendour, 
as shown in my illustrations, must be added the effect of colour, 
for their fagades are built of coloured tiles, among which the un- 
equalled blue of Persia predominates. These facades are flanked 
with minarets of extreme grace but curiously out of the per- 
pendicular, while within, the courtyard is surrounded with two 
storeys of class-rooms and students' apartments. Foreigners are 
not welcomed here, but I managed to make friends with the pro- 
fessors of one of these colleges, and after a theological discus- 
sion of the prohibition in the Koran of making pictures of the 
faithful, to take this photograph of a group of them. 

A young student of the madrassa, with the Oriental's eye for 
bakshish, volunteered to take me up to the roof, and the view of 
the city, combined with the recollection of its marvellous past, 
held me long entranced. Below was the crowded, noisy, many- 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND 



3'^3 



coloured market-place, enclosed by the great buildings, still mag- 
nificent in their partial ruin — the noblest pubHc square in the 
world, in Lord Curzon's opinion. Beyond them the glorious 




M 



A Sart of Samarkand. 



domes of the mausoleums of Timur, the man who built them 
all, and his wife, stood high above everything else. Time and 
earthquakes have wrought destruction, the portals are broken, 
some of the minarets are without tops, square yards of tiles have 



3^4 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



fallen off, rubbish heaps have been formed of the debris, but still 
the magnificence of these great structures persists, and I know 
no more impressive and picturesque sight than this great market, 




The Madrassa Shir Dar, Samarkand. 

crowded with stalls and shouting buyers and sellers, while high 
above and all around the human ant-heap stand these vast archi- 
tectural splendours of an age long past, the note of heavenly blue 
dominating all. The city, flat and sombre, was ringed around 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND 



327 



with gardens and vineyards. Around these was the bare, sandy 
desert, rolling up into the Alai range. Behind me was the peace- 




Interior of Shir Dar, Samarkand. 

ful courtyard, surrounded by its tiers of cells for the students, 
with trees, and fountains, and slowly stepping, white-turbaned 



328 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

mollahs. Once this was the metropoHs of the world of Islam, 
the home of art and poetry, the site of everything most splendid 
that Mohammedanism produced, the place of every Mussulman's 
desire, the symbol of beauty and perfection. Hafiz of Shiraz be- 
lieved himself to be touching the high-water mark of hyperbole 
when he wrote — 

If that Turkish girl of Shiraz would give me her heart, 

I would give for one mole of her cheek Samarkand and Bokhara. 

But the Uzbegs were the Goths and Vandals of this Asian Rome 
— the Turks of this later Athens. Finally even Bokhara took it 
and held it till the Russians came conquering from Tashkent. 
Happily Timur built his monuments so solidly that neither men 
nor time have destroyed them, and to-day they are assuredly 
still among the most glorious works of human hands. 

Timur himself reposes beneath an exquisite fluted dome, 
flanked originally by two minarets, of which one has fallen and 
the other is cracked and leans dangerously. In front is an en- 
trance portal with a Gothic arch, in blue enamel, leading to a 
garden shaded by alders and mulberries and weeping acacias. 
An aged mollah lives in a stone cell within the mausoleum, sur- 
rounded by paper texts copied from the decorations and tombs, 
which he sells to the faithful. Beneath the lofty dome, on the 
ground level, within a kind of palisade of pierced alabaster or 
gypsum, are half a dozen coffin-shaped slabs, marking the places 
where the bodies He in the crypt below. One of these is an 
enormous block of dark-green jade, almost black, said to be the 
largest in the world, bearing the name of the Amir Timur him- 
self, and the date of his death in Mohammedan chronology — 
A.D. 1405. Another block is commemorative of his grandson, 
Ulugh Beg, the famous astronomer. In a recess, below a pierced 
stone window, hangs a flag, surmounted by a horse-tail — the 
symbol of fighting Mohammedanism. When you have gazed 
upon these the old mollah lights a guttering candle and leads you 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND 



329 



down a narrow flight of marble steps to the crypt, where the 
mighty conqueror lies beneath a single stone — one of the world's 




Portal of the Tomb of Tamerlane, Samarkand. 



greatest dead, whose armies ranged victorious over more than 
even Russia rules to-day. 

Not less impressive than his own tomb, and probably more 
beautiful before it fell into hopeless decay, is the mausoleum of 



330 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



Bibi Khanum, his wife, the daughter of the Emperor of China. 
One traveller speaks of it as " le plus beau monument qui ait 
jamais ete eleve a la memoire d'une femme adoree,'' and if one 




The Tomb of Tamerlane, Samarkand. 



did not remember the Taj Mahal at Agra one might accept the 
enthusiastic verdict. Its colossal and sweeping portal is now but 
a ruined arch, and its magnificent and towering dome, once 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND 



33 



gorgeous in red and green and gold, is rent across and must 
soon fall. But time and neglect have failed to make any impres- 
sion upon one thing — the enormous marble lectern in the court- 
yard, which used, it is said, to hold a Koran of corresponding 
proportions read by Bibi Khanum herself from an upper window. 
Most impressive of all, however, to my way of thinking, is the 
mosque of the Shah Zindah, or " Living Saint," a martyred saint 




The Tomb of Tamerlane— Upper Chamber. 



of Islam, who is to arise again in the hour of the triumph of his 
faith. You enter it through a blue and white tiled gateway, and 
pass by a marble stair between a double row of tombs of Timur's 
relatives and generals. To the left, when I visited it, the very 
sacred mosque was crowded with kneeling worshippers, all bow- 
ing together like a wave as the leading mollah chanted the credo 
of Islam. If I caught the deep-rolling alliterative syllables aright, 
thev were the sacred words which Mohammed saw in letters of 



33^^ 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



fire on the tiara of Gabriel, since that day the profession of the 
most fanatical — " God, and nothing but God, and Mohammed 
the Prophet of God." Then through a long narrow corridor to 
the entrance of the inner mosque, on the threshold of which a 
niollah was devoutly praying, with its huge inscription, '' God is 
Great," and a green text from Mecca, a carved wooden pulpit, 
and an enormous Koran, five feet square. Then across padded 
carpets to the inner sanctuary, where, behind a pierced stone 
screen, old green flags hang, and a faint candle shows the deep 




Tomb of Tamerlane— the Crypt where he Lies. 



stone-built hole where the Saint awaits the joyful news of the 
final triumph of Islam. Beside the screen is a heavy little wooden 
door, leading to the vault below, and fastened with a most quaint 
padlock. " That has never been unlocked since the Saint en- 
tered the earth, twelve hundred and fifty-nine years ago," said 
the mollah who was conducting me — with a fine disregard, it 
must be confessed, of historical accuracy, for that would place 
the date about six hundred years before the birth of Timur him- 
self, who built the mosque. This spot, however, does not need 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND jjj 

the aid of pious fiction, and through these narrow ways and 
gates and prayer-chambers one walked in silence, for every- 
where worshippers were prostrating themselves in deep devo- 
tion, and in the innermost room one peered down into the deep 
and black tomb where the Saint lies until that day, feeling that 
one was in truth in a place sanctified by the solemn homage of 
ages of devout men. 

One word must be added here in criticism of the Russian 
authorities. They are apparently oblivious of the sacred re- 
sponsibility imposed upon them by the possession of these unique 
monuments of a glorious past. Some rough repairs of common 
plaster have been made in the walls and dome of the tomb of 
Timur — and, indeed, it would be a crime to allow so memorable 
a spot to fall into decay — but, on the whole, the Russians have 
done almost nothing to keep these splendid structures intact. 
They do strictly forbid the selling of the blue tiles, but thirty 
years after they came here an earthquake wrought destruction, 
and the piles of brick, and mortar, and smashed tiles He just as 
they fell. One of the most beautiful domes of Samarkand, that 
of the Mosque of Bibi Khanum herself, the great Amir's consort, 
has a huge open rift across it, and may collapse at any moment. 
The cost of preservation would not be great, and it is surprising 
that some archaeological society in Russia does not undertake 
the task which the Government thus strangely neglects."^ 

As Samarkand and all the surrounding country is Russian 
territory, and as the commerce of the place is important and 
rapidly growing, the Russian town — which, as in the case of 

* Since I wrote the above the following lamentable confirmation of this neglect has 
been telegraphed from St. Petersburg to the Daily Chronicle: — "The tomb of the 
great Asiatic conqueror Tamerlane, was plundered last month in Samarkand. The 
robbers not only broke the valuable memorial tablet that was on the tomb under the 
cupola of the great mosque, where the conqueror is buried, but they also took away 
many other valuables belonging to the mosque, which seems to be practically un- 
guarded, notwithstanding it contains some of the most valuable inscriptions in "Asia." 



334 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



Bokhara, is at some distance from the native one — is already of 
considerable extent and importance. The Governor's residence 
is large and spacious — indeed, somewhat extravagantly so — set 
in the middle of a square-walled garden of several acres. The 
official departments are numerous and well-housed, and there is 
an admirable school, on an astonishingly large scale, for the chil- 
dren of the civil servants and Russian residents. The shops are 




Mausoleum of Bibi Khanum. 



not like those in Siberia, but all ordinary supplies may be pur- 
chased. The town reminded me of some American cities in the 
West, being laid out like a chessboard, with wide streets planted 
with trees. It is evident that the Russians foresaw from the be- 
ginning the possibilities of the place, and that they allowed room 
for the development that is sure to come. The mountainous 
districts around are believed to contain valuable minerals in 
enormous quantities, and it is said that a great coal-bed has been 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND ^^S 

discovered. The natives are industrious, and weave Moscow 
yarn into stuffs which have a large local sale; many thousands 
of acres are planted with vines, producing wine and raisins; and 
the industry of distilling eau-de-vie de vin has sprung up and is 
growing fast. 

It is curious, as I have already remarked, that in such thriv- 
ing foreign settlements there is nothing like an hotel. The 




Tomb of Bibi Khanum. 

nearest approach is what are called Nomera, houses let out in 
furnished rooms, in which you can get a cup of coffee in the 
morning and nothing else that you can eat. On the other hand, 
the military casino, or club, is a fine building, with dining-rooms, 
billiard-room, library, and a truly magnificent ball-room and pri- 
vate theatre. Unless the traveller has the entree to this, he is very 
badly off in Samarkand. At Tashkent I was formally introduced 
by a courteous acquaintance, but here I knew nobody, as the 
Governor did not trouble to acknowledge the letter of introduc- 



33^ ALL THE RUSSIAS 

tion I left at his residence from his immediate superior, the Gov- 
ernor-General of Turkestan. This, by the way, and the action of 
the Chief of Police of Askabad, of which I have already spoken, 
were the only, two occasions during my whole journey in the 
Tsar's dominions when I was not treated with the utmost cour- 
tesy and consideration, and when every effort was not made 
to enable me to see everything and learn everything that I 
desired. I gladly take this opportunity to return my cordial 







. ^--^ 




^ ^sHUi 


i--^-^ 


cc^^^H 


i. 


^^^flBJ^HH 1 ^Mi 




mm^ 


II 


■^.'^[W^^^^^M 






1 


H 




m- •■Hill 


Ml 


1 


ti 



Mausoleum and Mosque of Shah Zindah. 

thanks, and to say that nowhere in the world could a visiting 
foreigner have pursued his way under happier conditions. But 
this reference to the club at Samarkand reminds me of a story. 
As I have said, I knew nobody, and the club was the only 
place in the foreign settlement where a decent meal could be had. 
So, with my interpreter, a young Russian gentleman who ac- 
companied me everywhere, I made bold to call at the club, ask 
for the name of any officer who happened to be present, and 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND 



337 



when a lieutenant who was playing billiards came out, to ex- 
plain to him who I was and what was my phght, and to beg 
that I might be permitted to use the club during my short stay. 




Interior of Shah Zindah, Samarkand. 



Like every Russian, he was the soul of courtesy when courte- 
ously approached, and he at once sought another officer on the 
premises to be my supporter, and our two names were entered as 



33^ 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



guests on the spot. This is one example of many such acts of 
friendly politeness. Now for the story — which shows another 
side of foreign life in Russia. It was during the Boer War, when 
things were not going well for us in South Africa, and anti- 
British feeling ran very high in Russia and the newspapers served 
up a daily hash of denunciations and lies manufactured in Brus- 
sels. Things reached such a pass at last that British Consuls, in 




The Hour of Prayer, Samarkand. 



full uniform, on ofBcial occasions, were deliberately insulted in 
public by Russian officials of high rank. With the timidity that 
has characterised it during the past five years the British Foreign 
OfBce, instead of officially taking up these insults and thus bring- 
ing them to an instant stop, ordered all our Consuls to absent 
themselves on public occasions. This order was the result of an 
exceedingly gross insult offered to our Consul in Moscow by a 
Russian General at an official party given by the Governor-Gen- 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND 



339 



eral there — an insult which compelled him to rise, seek his wife 
at another table, proceed to the table where the Grand Duke 
and the Grand Duchess were sitting at supper, make his bows, 
and withdraw, the most marked action that a foreigner could 
possibly take in the presence of Russian royalty. This, however, 
is not the story, which contains one of the most finished diplo- 
matic replies I have ever heard of. A British Consul-General, 




The Avenue of Andijan. 



with a military title from having served in a famous Highland 
regiment, was dining in full uniform at an oi^cial party on a 
State occasion about this time. He was seated at a table with a 
distinguished company, including a prince and princess. While 
they were talking, a well-known Russian General, covered with 
decorations, walked across from another table, his glass in his 
hand, and holding it before the face of the British Consul-Gen- 
eral exclaimed, " Je hois a la sante des braves Boers! " It was a 



340 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



moment that would have tested the most experienced diplomacy. 
But the Scotsman was equal to it. The insult was deliberate and 
gross; moreover, it was official, and the Consul would have been 
wholly within his rights if he had treated it as such, left the room, 



''^-~:. 




The Native Policeman of Andijan. 

reported it to his Ambassador, and demanded an apology. This, 
however, in the circumstances, and considering the relations of 
the two countries, would have been a blunder, and the Foreign 
Office, while it would have been compelled to take up his case, 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND 341 

would have regarded him as a tactless mischief-maker. Still, 
some reply had to be made on the spot, and a dignified one. 
The Consul-General rose instantly, with perfect self-control ig- 
nored the intended affront, and touching his glass to the Gen- 
eral's responded, " Aitx braves de toiites les nations, mon General! " 
It would be diffiicult to beat that reply, and the Russians them- 
selves were loud in their praises of such consummate tact. The 
man who made it was severely wounded by a Boer shell not long 
afterward. 



Beyond Samarkand, along the eastern branch of the Trans- 
Caspian to its terminus at Andijan, lies the cotton country of 
Turkestan. The towns themselves — Khodjent, Kokand, Marge- 
Ian (the administrative capital of Fergana), and Andijan — are on 
a smaller scale like those I have described, Kokand with a past, 
Margelan with a present of greater importance. Nothing in 
them calls for additional remark, except cotton. Where there 
is no water, or no system of irrigation, desolation reigns. I re- 
member well how the train stopped, late one afternoon, at a 
station in the middle of the desert. Not a house or a leaf was 
in sight. A few dogs were prowling about, an old man on a 
camel was just starting across the trackless sand, and a long- 
bearded Sart was delighting the Russian station-master's little 
son by setting him upon his ass. A hundred yards from the 
station were seven graves in the sand, each with a rough wooden 
cross above it, and by the sight of the station-master himself, 
thin, pale, bent, with crooked knees, I judged there would soon 
be eight. Given water, and the scene changes to fat fields, cosey 
dwellings, blooming gardens, prosperous natives, and mountains 
of bales of cotton awaiting transport. 

The cotton-land is the property of those natives who were in 
occupation of it when the Russians came, and every effort is 
wisely made to keep it in their hands. Before they can sell. 



342 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



they must procure the written permission of three Kazis, or 
native judges, and then the Russian Chief of the District can 
either give or withhold his consent to the transaction, and in 
any case he only gives permission when none of the native neigh- 
bours wish to purchase. The land-tax is based upon a quin- 
quennial classification according to crop, and its maximum is 
6 roubles per dessiatina (2.7 acres*) for cotton-land, and 7^ 




Packing Cotton in Andijan. 



roubles for rice-land. That which pays 7^ roubles is sold at 
about 500 roubles the dessiatina — about £20 an acre. Land 
bought twelve years ago for 17 roubles is to-day worth 300, 
which explains the prosperity of some of the older cotton com- 
panies. In Fergana the crop averages 60 pouds — rather less than 
a ton — of raw cotton to the dessiatina, or about 800 fbs to the 

* Murray's Handbook to Russia (5th ed., p. [65]) gives one dessiatina as equal to 
28.6 acres! 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND 343 

acre; at Merv, 50 pouds, and at Tashkent, 30 ponds. Ten years 
ago a Sart labourer was paid 17 kopecks a day; now he receives 
from sixty to seventy. The buyers make an advance upon the 
crop in February or March, and the harvest is in September and 
October; but this system has the obvious disadvantage that the 
natives, being sure of their money, take less pains with the 
crop. Several Americans have visited Fergana lately, with a 
view to the investment of capital. One, who had left three 
wrecks before my visit, had offered to irrigate over 450,000 
acres of the terrible so-called " Famine Steppe," from the water 
of the Syr-Darya, on condition that he should be allowed to let 
the land along the canal to natives for a hundred years, at a rent 
to be agreed upon between the Government and himself, the 
irrigation works to be the property of the Government at the 
expiration of that period. Two others were proposing to erect 
presses to produce cotton-seed oil and cotton-cake. Cotton has 
been rather unlucky lately in this district. First of all, when the 
price of grain once rose, the natives all hastened to put their 
land under grain, instead of cotton, with the natural result that 
they lost heavily. Then the revolt caused much land to go out 
of cultivation for a time. This year locusts have done great 
damage. But the future of Turkestan as a cotton-growing coun- 
try is assured, and the time will come when Russia will realise 
her ideal of finding in her own territory, beyond the Caspian, all 
the cotton needed by her mills in Europe and those which will 
he built in the Caucasus. Spinning-mills at Baku, I may add, 
will be highly profitable enterprises, for on the one hand, they 
will save the cost of transport of the raw material to central 
Russia and of the finished article back again, and on the other, 
the markets of Asia will be at their door. 

I wished to see what Russian Central Asia looked like beyond 
the railway, so after a couple of days spent at Andijan, its ter- 
minus, I drove fifty versts to Osh, the last Russian town before 



344 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



the Chinese frontier is reached, and the starting-place for the 
great passes leading into Kashgar. The first village on the road 
is curiously called Khartum, and I had not gone far before I was 
struck with the busy and prosperous life here on the very out- 
skirts of Russia's territory. Every few yards on the road I met 
or passed mounted men, often two on a horse, or an arba — 











1?^ 


fjJ: 


1: 


"^^H| 




5*. 




m 


I^hLii / 




1 







The Entrance to Osh. 

the high-wheeled carts of my illustration, for fording rivers with- 
out wetting their loads — piled with sacks of grain or cotton- 
seed or hay, or filled full of veiled women and pretty children, 
the driver sitting astride the horse in the shafts. One charming 
figure went b}/ — a young man, lightly dressed to run, on his fist 
a yellow hawk, not hooded, but tied by a string to its leg, ready 
to be cast ofif. And a Kirghiz family party, out shopping, pleased 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND 



345 



me greatly. The man was on one horse, with a little son perched 
behind him, his arms round his father's waist and his legs wide- 
stretched almost to splitting point. The woman was astride of 
another horse, with a baby before her, and she looked gay in her 
scarlet cotton gown and white hood, and masses of jingling 
metal ornaments. On her flat face, of the colour of terra-cotta. 




A Kirghiz Family Shopping in Osh. 

could be read the struggle between modesty and intense curios- 
ity as I approached. Finally the latter conquered, and we had a 
good look at each other till her husband perceived her fall, and 
angrily drove her away. 

The road ran between wide cotton-fields, their tiny canals 
planted on either side with pollard willows. Just before the town, 
at a wayside tea-house, there was a little mosque with its minaret, 
whence the faithful were called to prayers, in the fork of a high 
tree, and, as I drove into the first street, I saw two haystacks 
apparently coming toward me and filling the road from side to 



346 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



side. These turned out to be enormously laden donkeys, with 
nothing but their noses and hoofs visible. Then two miles of 
deeply rutted roads, between thick earthen houses, their flat 
roofs bearing great heaps of maize-straw, millet-sheaves, and 
green hay, brought me to the centre of the town, where a crowd 
of natives, their horses tethered in a long row against the wall, 
were gathered in front of the Uyesdnoye Pravlenye, the office of 




A Mother and Daughter of Osh and their Home. 



the Russian administrator, and the post-office. Osh is remark- 
able for a number of high-walled enclosures, with huge wooden 
gates. At first I thought they were old forts of some kind, but 
they turned out to be for droves of horses and cattle. And the 
number of chaihannas, open tea-houses, all well patronised, and 
singularly picturesque at night when white-turbaned groups 
gather round the blazing fire, show that the people of Osh are 
what the Germans call gemilthlich. Nevertheless they often cast 



SAMARKAND AND BEYOND 



347 



black looks at the foreigner, and a man ran at me with a horse- 
whip while I was taking one of these photographs. But the little 
girls cheerily cried, Salaam aleikum ! 

A magnificent, mile-long avenue of silver beeches leads to 
the governor's residence, on a hillside overlooking the town and 
a brown range of mountains. The guardian of this outpost is 
Colonel Zaitzef, the frequent host of Dr. Sven Hedin during 
the pauses of his splendid explorations in this part of the world, 
and I found him feeling much 
kindly anxiety about a piano he 
had undertaken to see safely on its 
way to Mr. Macartney, the British 
Resident at Kashgar, which had 
gone astray somewhere between 
here and the Caspian. On my 
homeward journey I was fortunate 
enough to discover it and get it 
sent forward — a fact which would 
doubtless be made known at once 
in Kashgar, as a telegraph line 
runs from here via Vernoye. 

I do not think that Osh will 
long remain a Russian outpost. 
Kashgaria is weakly held by 
China; the rule of the local Chi- 
nese officials is barbarous, and 
taxes are collected by torture when 
other methods fail; great discontent, therefore, reigns; and Rus- 
sia has within her borders, and under her hand, Mohammedan 
refugees who could be slipped like hounds to raise rebellion. The 
British Resident is compelled, by the deliberate withholding of 
support from home — going so far as to forbid him to wear a 
uniform — to play a minor role, while his Russian colleague is 
almost master in the place. Nor do I see that an arrangement 




Osh and no Mistake" — the End 
of My Journey. 



348 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

which gave Kashgaria and Kulja — for the latter would inevitably 
follow the former — to Russia, need raise any objections in Eng- 
land. It is her natural line of expansion; it is out of any possible 
sphere of ours; and it would substitute civiHsation for extortion 
and cruelty. For my last word about Central Asia must be — 
and it was the dominant thought in my mind as I deciphered the 
faded word " Osh " on the official boundary-post and realised 
that I had reached the end of my long journey — that Russia 
has destroyed nothing there — except the Turkoman horse and 
the Turkoman carpet — that was of any value, and that she has 
brought peace, prosperity, and probably quite as much liberty 
as is good for those who enjoy it. 



ECONOMICS 



CHAPTER XXII 

M. DE WITTE AND HIS POLICY 

FROM the unique and impressive spectacle of absolute 
autocracy; from the docile, child-like masses of the peo- 
ple; from the vastness of Siberia, slowly awaking- to conscious- 
ness and productivity under the stimulus of a railway which links 
Moscow to the China Sea; from the beauty and Babel of the 
Caucasus; from the conquest and annexation of the proud peo- 
ples and historic cities of Central Asia — I turn to a wholly dif- 
ferent aspect of the Russia of to-day. No romantic story intro- 
duces it; no clash of arms or diplomatic intrigue echoes through 
it; the camera affords it but one single illustration— the portrait 
of a man. To my thinking, however, it exhibits the most won- 
derful Russia of all. 

'' The Russian State is by far the greatest economic unit on 
the face of the globe." * To ninety-nine readers out of a hun- 
dred, this statement will doubtless be startling. It certainly 
was to me, when I first met with it, yet the facts to justify it are 
not far to seek. The Russian State draws an annual net profit 
of 45,000,000 roubles from its forests, mines, and agricultural 
property. It receives annually 80,000,000 roubles (minus con- 
siderable arrears) from its communities of ex-serfs for the use 
of land it ceded to or purchased for them. It is building the 
longest and most costly railway in the world, and it owns and 

* For this phrase, and for many of the statistical facts which follow, I am indebted 
to the Russian Journal of Financial Statistics, an admirable periodical presentation of 
figures and explanations dealing with every side of Russian economic and financial 
activity. Although a semi-official publication, the statistics given in the Journal are 
absolutely trustworthy. 

349 



350 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

works over 24,000 miles of railways, the net revenue on which 
is equal to one-seventh of the net revenue of all the railways of 
the United States. 

In 1898 it received £180,000,000 into its confers, nearly one- 
half of which sum was not produced by taxation. Its budget 
is greater than that of France by more than £40,000,000. 

In 1890, when one of the banks of London was unable to 
meet its obligations, the Russian Government had with it on 
current account a balance of so many millions of pounds that 
when the Bank of England came to the rescue a request was 
immediately made to Russia not to dispose of her balance before 
a certain date, since to do so would be to precipitate a financial 
crisis of the utmost gravity. Finally, besides being a capitalist 
and a banker of this magnitude, the Russian State is also a 
metallurgist and a spirit-merchant. In a word, the proud claim 
is made for it that it is the greatest land-owner, the greatest 
capitaHst, the greatest constructor of railways, and carries on the 
largest business in the world. This is the aspect of contemporary 
Russia to which I now turn. I need hardly add that it can be 
but a brief consideration of a great and complex subject. 

To some people statistics ofifer the liveliest interest; to most 
they are dull and soporific. Therefore I do not wish to fill my 
space with tabulated figures, and fortunately an easy way of 
escape presents itself. Economic, industrial, and commercial 
Russia of to-day is, in a large degree, the work of one living 
statesman, and in his convictions and his activity its direction is 
incarnate. This man is Monsieur de Witte, Minister of Finance, 
and his career is many chapters of the story of how modern Rus- 
sia, in this aspect, came to be what she is. Few people who know 
him well would dispute the opinion that he is perhaps the 
ablest and most far-seeing statesman in Europe to-day, and it is 
doubtful if any other exercises so great an influence as he upon 
the course of events. Outside Russia, however, and the higher 



M. DE WITTE AND HIS POLICY 351 

circles of diplomacy and finance, he is comparatively little known, 
and not much that is accurate has ever been written about him. 
From every point of view, therefore, his story is worth telling, 
but I must preface it by the remark that in no way whatever, 
directly or indirectly, is any word here due to his inspiration, or 
has even any suggestion upon the subject ever been made by him 
to me. I have had the honour of conversing with M. de Witte 
on a good many occasions, but all that follows here is my personal 
view, and the sole responsibility for it is my own. When this 
sketch of his career appeared in its original form I sent him a 
copy of it. At our next meeting he thanked me formally, but 
neither then, nor at any subsequent time, did he make one word 
of comment upon it. 



Serge Julievich Witte was born in 1849, i^ the Caucasus, 
where his father, of German descent, was Director of State Do- 
mains. His mother, nee Fadayef, was the daughter of the Gov- 
ernor of Saratof under the Emperor Nicholas, and of a Princess 
Dolgoruki, one of the oldest and best-known Russian noble 
families. His first studies were pursued at the Gymnasium of 
Tiflis, which must have been a very strange place forty years ago, 
with its extraordinary mixtures of Georgians, Armenians, Circas- 
sians, Persians, and the like, all much more strongly marked 
with their national characteristics than they are in the same city 
to-day. To such an environment in early youth M. de Witte's 
wide outlook in after-life may probably be traced. From Tiflis 
he passed to the University of Odessa, where it is said he pre- 
sented Georgian as the '' foreign language " necessary to his 
graduation in 1870, thus compelling the faculty to import a pro- 
fessor of Georgian to examine him. Like many another, he found 
in journalism the ladder to public life, M. Katkof, the well-known 
editor of the Moscow Viedomosti, being first his pattern and 
afterw^ard his chief, whom he supported enthusiastically in more 



^.S'l ALL THE RUSSIAS 

than one of his hard-fought campaigns for a new ideal of Rus- 
sian patriotism. He was also a collaborator of the once famous 
Aksakof. 

M. de Witte's first post was a modest one in the service of the 
Odessa Railway, which at that time belonged to the State. He 
rose steadily from one grade to another, and his personal quaHties 
were so highly esteemed that the municipality of Odessa elected 
him to the post of honorary magistrate, a kind of judicial arbi- 
trator to whose decision both parties in a dispute can agree to 
refer the issue between them. At this time, coo, the Odessa 
Railway, together with other adjoining lines, was conceded by 
the State to private enterprise, and the whole, amounting to 2,000 
miles of road, formed into the important Southwest Railway 
Company, of which M. de Witte, who had attracted favourable 
official notice by a work upon the principles of a universal 
railway tariff, ultimately adopted throughout Russia, became 
general manager after ten years of service. During the 
Russo-Turkish War he also greatly distinguished himself by 
administrative skill and energy in forwarding troops and sup- 
plies to the front. 

In 1887 M. Bunge, Minister of Finance, resigned this ofifice, 
and was succeeded by M. Vishnegradski, a man of great natural 
gifts and greater acquired knowledge. He had been for several 
years president of the Southwest Railway and other important 
companies, and being, therefore, intimately acquainted with M. 
de Witte's career and capabilities, one of his first acts was to 
ofifer the latter a post in the Ministry of Finance. M. de Witte 
declined this, not unnaturally preferring his own independent 
position, but a dramatic incident which occurred soon afterward 
led him inevitably to St. Petersburg. As manager of the South- 
west Railway it was his duty to supervise the arrangements of 
the Imperial train. In spite of his energetic warnings these were 
so made as to result in the terrible catastrophe at Borki, when 
the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, and their children narrowly escaped death. 



M. DE WITTE AND HIS POLICY ^53 

M. de Witte's action in this connection recommended him so 
strongly to the Tsar that soon afterward M. Vishnegradski's re- 
peated invitation was backed by an Imperial command, and he 




His Excellency M. de Witte, Minister of Finance. 

accepted the post of Director of Railways, specially created for 
him. In March, 1892, he was appointed by the Emperor Minister 
of Ways of Communication; during M. Vishnegradski's long 



354 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

illness he undertook the duties of the Finance Department; and 
when the latter was compelled in August to retire from public 
life, M. de Witte was appointed, provisionally at first, and after- 
ward formally. Minister of Finance. This was in January, 1893, 
and consequently by his own unaided ability he had reached the 
highest administrative post in the Russian Empire at the age of 
forty-four. In the very same year he fought the great tariff war 
with Germany, and showed the world once for all that he could 
handle colossal issues of national finance with the utmost hardi- 
hood, and that, having once entered upon a struggle, he would 
stop at nothing to bring it to a successful conclusion. Since that 
time his high-tarifT neighbours have taken care to give him no 
ground for reprisals. 

The key to M. de Witte's economic views may be found in the 
fact that at an early period of his career he pubHshed a work 
entitled " The Political Economy of Friedrich List." The latter 
(1789-1846, "the politico-economic Messiah of two worlds") 
was an apostle of what may be called " educational protection," 
and this has been throughout his life, as it still remains, the 
fundamental principle of M. de Witte's economic statesmanship. 
Such a principle assuredly needs no explanation or comment for 
American readers at any rate, to whom it must be familiar alike 
in theory and in practice. M. de Witte's statesmanship has been 
directed, up to the present time, to four ends, of which this edu- 
cational protection is the first and chief. A brief experiment he 
made, but dropped as soon as wider knowledge showed it to be 
unsound, may be just mentioned for the sake of contrast. He 
began with a belief in " rag-baby " currency — the issue of as- 
signats, irredeemable paper money, for the payment of the cost 
of public works. Of this nothing more need be said than that 
the greatest achievement of his public life has been won in pre- 
cisely the reverse direction. The second subject to which he 
turned his attention was the fluctuation in exchange of the gold 



M. DE WITTE AND HIS POLICY 355 

price of the rouble. These fluctuations seem almost incredible 
to-day, in view of the stability now so firmly established. In 
February, 1888, the rouble was quoted in London at 19 pence; 
in September, 1890, it sprang suddenly to 31 pence; by De- 
cember, 1891, it had fallen to 21 pence. Between 1877 and 
1896 the highest and lowest rates in London and New York, 
respectively, were 2s. gd. and i^. yd., and 67 cents and 38?^ cents. 
The most unscrupulous gambling took place upon the Berlin 
bourse. In 1891 the hundred-rouble note had actually been 
quoted at rates varying from 245.10 marks to 191.50 marks. 
Financial reform, or indeed any important financial operation, 
was almost impossible to a country whose currency was thus the 
sport of the money-gamblers, so M. de Witte resolved to strike, 
and — perhaps remembering what the tariff war with Germany 
had cost him — at Berlin. So he struck, with his accustomed 
boldness, straight from the shoulder. It was decided that from 
January i, 1894, to December 31, 1895, the gold price of the 
hundred-rouble note should not fall below 216 marks, and Berlin 
was informed that as many paper roubles as she cared to sell 
would be bought at that rate. Berlin sold gaily for eight months, 
and M. de Witte bought; then, when the final time for delivery 
came, her speculators had to go upon their knees to the Russian 
Minister of Finance and beg him of his mercy not utterly to ruin 
them all. He consented to let them off easily, and there has 
been no gambling in the rouble since. The Russian statistical 
historian remembers that not long ago an empty space used to 
be pointed out in the Berlin Stock Exchange, and questioners 
were told, '' That is where speculators in the rouble stood." 
Campi ubi Troja furt-. 

The rouble being thus placed upon a stable basis of exchange, 
the next step was obviously to the gold standard, and this su- 
preme reform constitutes the third of M. de Witte's aims. The 
policy which had stopped the gambling at Berlin was continued 
till November, 1897, by which time experience had shown con- 



356 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

clusively that the resources of the Russian treasury were suffi- 
cient to enable it to announce definitively that payments would 
henceforth be made in gold specie, and by an Imperial ukaz of 
November 14, 1897, every rouble note was made to bear upon 
its face an undertaking to that effect. The most remarkable 
fact about this resumption of specie payments is the enormous 
contraction of paper money by which it was accompanied. On 
January i, 1892, the amount of paper roubles issued was 1,121,- 
000,000; to-day it is 630,000,000. That is, over £52,000,000 of 
paper money was withdrawn from circulation, the public being 
literally compelled to take gold. And what makes this enor- 
mous contraction the more remarkable, if not indeed unique, 
is that as in Russia the State alone issues paper money, these 
notes were not withdrawn in one form to be reissued in 
another. 

M. de Witte's fourth great undertaking — the first in point 
of time — is under way to-day, but it will not be concluded for 
several years. This is the government monopoly of the sale of 
alcohol. Hitherto his official achievements had been in the line 
of economic science, connected only indirectly with social prob- 
lems. His latest legislation, however, strikes deep to the very 
roots of popular welfare. Drunkenness is a great curse in Russia, 
as everywhere. The consumption of alcohol per head is not so 
great there as in the United Kingdom, but it does more harm, for 
there is in Russia an entire class, the peasants — the very class 
upon whom in the last analysis the prosperity and security of the 
country rest — which is impoverished and degraded by drink to 
an extent not found in any class of any other country. The very 
virtues of the Russian peasant — his good-humour, his sociability, 
his kindness of heart — make him an easy victim, and to these 
must be added the terrible loneliness of his life, the long black 
evenings of winter, the total absence of any other form of enter- 
tainment, his ignorance and illiteracy, and finally the poisonous 



M. DE WITTE AND HIS POLICY 357 

filth which has been all that he could buy in the shape of alcohol. 
To the late Emperor Alexander III. belongs the credit of seeing 
that this evil, destroying his people wholesale, must absolutely be 
stopped so far as legislation can stop it, but hitherto no Russian 
statesman has been found courageous enough to carry the gigan- 
tic task to its logical conclusion. Already in 1885 a law had been 
passed prohibiting the sale of spirits apart from the sale of food, 
except in corked bottles, and forbidding the establishments per- 
mitted to sell spirits by the bottle to consist of more than one 
room, or to have on the premises any spirits in open vessels. This 
law killed the drinking-house, pure and simple, but the peasant 
could still drink all he desired by going to a traktir, or restaurant, 
where a few bits of fish and bread were also for sale. It did noth- 
ing to prevent the sale of physiologically noxious spirit, and, 
most important, it left the publican free to buy the peasant's 
labour or produce for spirit — the most ruinous course of all. The 
Emperor Alexander III. perceived that what had been done so far 
was after all but a half-measure, and that nothing short of a State 
control of the retail sale of drink would save the peasant from 
ruin. But M. Bunge, the first Minister of Finance to whom the 
opportunity was given, dared not seize it; M. Vishnegradski, 
the second, determined to do so, but always put off the first 
step till the morrow; M. de Witte, fresh from his financial suc- 
cess, and looking for new legislative worlds to conquer, took 
upon himself the burden of this reform, and by the law of 1894 
a gradual government monopoly of the sale of spirit was estab- 
lished. 

The principles upon which he has acted are briefly as follows : 
A man drinks for three reasons : First, because he has a natural 
desire to do so; second, because he is excited to do so; or third, 
because he is given credit to enable him to do so. From the first 
of these reasons drinking is seen to be inevitable; complete pro- 
hibition is impossible, and the evasion of it only leads to more 
destructive drinking than that for which a cure is sought. But 



358 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

the second and third causes given above can be removed: it 
shall be no man's interest to excite another to drink, and no man 
shall be supplied with drink on credit. Incidentally, no man shall 
drink stuff which poisons him physically and destroys him 
morally. Therefore it follows that nobody except the State shall 
make either a direct or indirect profit from the sale of spirit. 
On January i, 1901, the law of 1894 was extended to all Russia 
except Siberia and the Caucasus, and therefore in a short time 
the whole manufacture and sale of spirit in the Russian Empire 
will be a strict government monopoly; the spirit will be of 
pure quality; it will not be sold by the glass except bona Ude 
with food; and it will be sold for cash only. I have heard not 
a little complaint and indeed denunciation of this legislation, 
but in my opinion it is a magnificent reform, under the peculiar 
conditions of Russian life, and redounds to the honour alike 
of the monarch who perceived its necessity, and of the states- 
man who is carrying it into effect. 

In one respect this reform offers far less difficulty in Russia 
than, for instance, in England. In the latter country a man gets 
drunk, at his pleasure, upon brandy, or whiskey, or gin, or rum, 
or beer; in the former the only intoxicant known to the people 
is vodka. There remains, of course, nothing to prevent the peas- 
ant from buying his bottle of corn-brandy and drinking it at 
home, but there, at any rate, as has been well said, " the bland- 
ishments of the publican would probably be replaced by conjugal 
remonstrances." 

Finally, in this connection, what has been the financial result 
of monopoly so far as it has gone? Monopoly was certainly not 
introduced into Russia for any profit it might bring — the other 
reasons for it were so overwhelming as to render that one un- 
necessary — but it has been a source of additional revenue to the 
State, all the same, for the net profit for 1901 is calculated at 
over four millions sterling. The uniform price of spirit is now 
6s. — $1.45 — a gallon. 



M. DE WITTE AND HIS POLICY ^S9 

I have said already that the system of " educational protec- 
tion " — in plain language, the development of home industries 
by means of high duties upon imported manufactured articles and 
upon raw material which the country itself is also able to produce 
— has been the central idea of M. de Witte's national policy. 
With the resulting industrial and commercial Russia of to-day he 
is more closely identified than any other man. In a recent report 
to the Emperor he points to this with pardonable pride. Classify- 
ing the national industrial production under nine heads — textiles, 
food, animal products, wood, paper, chemicals, pottery, manu- 
factured metal, and various — from 1878 to 1887 Russia produced 
26,000,000 roubles' worth; from 1888-92 the output was 41,- 
000,000 roubles; and from 1893-97 it had risen to no less 
than 161,000,000 roubles. That is, the progress of the figures 
of industrial business — the industrial turn-over — during the 
latest quinquennial period was four times that of the preced- 
ing period, and six times that which ended ten years ago. The 
figures relating to the extraction and production of minerals are 
as striking as those of manufacture. Of coal, petroleum, pig- 
iron, iron, and steel, Russia produced in 1877 a total of 1,700,000 
tons; in 1898 she produced close upon 24,000,000 tons. To 
take the latest figures of all — of coal, cast and wrought iron, 
steel, and cotton goods, Russia produced in 1892, 9,000,000 
tons, and in 1900 nearly 21,000,000 tons.* Such figures are 
alone a sufficient justification of M. de Witte's policy, but as, 
under the Emperor, he controls the economic and industrial 
future of Russia, and as foreign capitalists will certainly turn 
their attention more and more to that country, it is worth while 
to quote from his own lips a lucid summary and defence of his 
actions. He gave this in an ofificial speech a few years ago, but 
I have never seen it in English. 

" History shows," he said, " that exclusively agricultural 
countries, even when they are politically independent and inter- 

* The exact and detailed figures will be found in the next chapter. 



360 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

nationally powerful, are economically restricted to the role of 
tributary colonies to industrial countries, which are, so to speak, 
their metropolis. In exclusively agricultural countries neither 
intensive agriculture nor an accumulation of capital is possible. 
A large spirit of enterprise is never found there. Technical 
knowledge is rare there, and, as our own experience shows, even 
the food of the people depends upon circumstances now of one 
kind, now of another, against which agriculture cannot contend. 
. . . The best protection that can be afforded to agriculture 
consists in assuring for it a market at home for its products, and 
remunerative wages for labour which finds no occupation on the 
land. . . . The ultimate aim of the protectionist system is 
therefore to enfranchise our national production from its de- 
pendence aUke upon foreign labour and foreign markets, and to 
raise our country to an economic unity of an independent im- 
portance. Like all other methods of action, protection should 
only be regarded as a temporary measure, in force until the time 
comes when its object is reached. 

" It is not, however, surprising that many persons think this 
temporary measure should be permanent. Those who benefit 
by protection are not disposed to let themselves be deprived of 
all the advantages which it brings them. That is why we see a 
certain dissatisfaction at the influx of foreign capital for industrial 
purposes, capital which creates competition, which in its turn 
lowers prices and reduces profits. We sometimes hear individual 
interests, shielding themselves behind a sham patriotism, speak- 
ing of * squandering the natural resources of our country,* or of 
the * enslavement of our people to foreigners.' It is not the first 
time that such complaints are heard. They arose in the days of 
Peter the Great, when he wished to ' open the window toward 
Europe.' The Great Reformer himself had to overcome this 
* patriotic ' wish to preserve routine, ignorance, the spirit of iso- 
lation — in a word, all the fetters which confine the vital forces 
of the country. ... 



M. DE WITTE AND HIS POLICY 361 

** The protectionist system has the effect of creating a school 
for our young industry. Important results have already been 
obtained in this respect. Doubtless this school costs us dear. 
The Russian consumer pays a high price for manufactured arti- 
cles : that is the chief reproach that can be made against pro- 
tection. But it is precisely for this reason that the present phase 
must be traversed as quickly as possible, and this again is why 
we must attract a large amount of foreign capital into Russia. 

'* Unhappily, the amount of available Russian capital is in- 
sufificient; agriculture supplies almost none at all, and hoarded 
capital can hardly be attracted toward industrial enterprise. 
Abroad, capital is plentiful, and it is cheap; we must seek it 
there. Beyond all question it is better to see foreign capital 
flowing into Russia, than to witness the importation of foreign 
products. For it is by means of this foreign capital that Russian 
production itself will be developed, obtaining for its own profit, 
at the lowest calculation, ninety per cent, of the value of the 
manufactured article." 

This speech is not only M. de Witte's reply to the so-called 
" pro-Russian " party, which detests foreigners and all their ways 
and works, and to those who charge him with destroying a nat- 
ural agricultural community in order to create an artificial indus- 
trial one, but it is a concise summary of Russian economic policy. 
It deserves, therefore, the most careful attention in other coun- 
tries. 

Alongside his invitation to foreign capital, as a counterpoise 
to the protectionist regime — that is, to replace by it that healthy 
and necessary competition which a high tariff of itself tends to 
suppress — M. de Witte has done much to supply capital in 
Russia with its helpmate, labour. To give one example only, since 
the emancipation of the serfs every peasant has had the theoreti-, 
cal right to a passport (without which he cannot move outside his 
native village). In practice, however, he was almost as tightly 
chained to the soil as before; for passports are issued by the 



362 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

village community, the mir, and the mir gave them only to men 
whose payments of taxes were not in arrears. But as the mir 
is always in arrears of payment, for which all its members are 
jointly and severally responsible, it could refuse a passport to any- 
body. Moreover, if a number of men were working in a factory 
away from home, and that factory for any reason were closed, the 
police of the place immediately shipped all the workmen back 
to their own communes. M. de Witte has gained for every Rus- 
sian of the labouring classes the right to a passport for at least one 
year. This reform, simple in itself, is obviously of the greatest 
importance in the development of industrial enterprise, although 
at times of political trouble the police authorities probably ig- 
nore this yearly passport. Moreover, he has drawn up a code of 
regulations corresponding to our Factory Acts, workmen's com- 
pensation, etc., and is about to present them to the Council of 
Ministers. These are of the nature of reforms to assure labour 
in Russia of consideration and protection analogous to that 
which it enjoys in other countries. Finally, he is at present 
turning his attention to the introduction of the metric system 
into Russia, and to the development of a Russian mercantile 
marine. 

Such, in brief, are the career and the views of the most influ- 
ential statesman of Russia — a man, moreover, if the Tsar's con- 
fidence continues to be extended to him in the same full measure 
as hitherto, whose influence upon Russian affairs, national and 
international, may be even greater in the future than in the past. 
One obvious danger accompanies his insatiable activity. In or- 
der to get things done in accordance with his policy he has trans- 
ferred one department after another to the Ministry of Finance, 
until the work of this office is assuming dimensions beyond the 
personal supervision of any one man. Moreover, however great 
the will, there is a limit to human endurance, and that limit, in 
M. de Witte's case, must be nearly reached. If his health broke 
down, and caused him to relinquish his work half-finished, there 
is no telling what the consequences might be. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

RUSSIAN FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 

THE finances, national and international, of the Russian 
Empire form a very complex subject, about which seri- 
ous misapprehensions exist, even among foreigners who study 
such matters, while gross mistakes receive popular credence. 
A volume, not a chapter, would be necessary for a complete 
exposition, even if I myself possessed the technical qualifica- 
tions for so difficult a task. Russian finance, industry, and 
natural resources have, however, become of late the subject 
of frequent and familiar public comment, commonly inexact, 
and therefore, even within the restricted limits of my space and 
my own competence, I hope to be able to throw some light 
upon them. 

The Russian national debt, which is less than those of 
France and England only, is now £680,000,000 ($3,311,- 
000,000). Upon this she pays an annual interest of about 
£27,200,000 ($132,500,000). Now, in view of these vast 
figures and the long series of Russian loans that have been 
floated (chiefly in France) during the last few years, popular 
opinion, and indeed to a large extent educated opinion also, 
have come to regard Russia as a country which is not paying 
its way, which is expanding and undertaking new enterprises 
far beyond its financial resources, and which can only keep 
going by constantly borrowing from its neighbours. And this 
opinion is often popularly illustrated by pictures of Russian 

363 



364 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

statesmen and financiers running about the world trying to 
raise loans. 

In one sense it is perfectly true that Russia needs money; 
but in the sense in which the above opinions are commonly 
stated and believed, they are wholly inaccurate. The Russian 
public debt is very large, but it is being paid off at the present 
time at the rate of £2,500,000 a year. During the past ten 
years no less than £30,000,000 has been paid off. This striking 
fact is usually overlooked. Moreover, as security for its debt 
the Russian State (I am not speaking of the country of 
Russia: the difference is vital) has natural resources and pro- 
ductive public works surpassing in value those of any other 
State in the world. Besides its enormous mineral wealth, which 
has hardly been scratched as yet, it draws, for instance, an 
annual net revenue of more than five millions sterling from 
its forests; and while the United States has almost exhausted its 
timber, and Europe is looking around anxiously to see where 
its wood and wood-pulp are to come from in a few years, the 
Russian State has 200,000,000 acres of real forest as yet un- 
touched. (Official figures give a far larger area than this, but 
I am speaking of genuine forest, not mere forest-land.) Russia's 
peasants pay (minus large arrears) the State an annual rent of 
£8,460,000. It owns and works over 24,000 miles of railway, 
of which the average net earnings from 1897-99 were £14,- 
800,000. Its budget shows a considerable surplus every year 
— with these surpluses the Trans-Siberian Railway has been 
largely built. These considerations will place the financial 
position of Russia in a new light for most people; but what 
follows will astonish still more all who have not looked care- 
fully into tihe matter. I turn now to Russian loans. 

During the past fifteen years Russia has borrowed enor- 
mously — that is what strikes the popular imagination. But 
during these fifteen years Russia has converted and redeemed 
in cash previous loans amounting to over £440,000,000. In 



FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 365 

fact, from i88y to ipoi the Russian treasury has not received 
from new loans a single penny of capital more than the old 
capital it repaid its creditors."^ 

How baseless, therefore, is the widespread notion that 
Russia, Hke a spendthrift, borrows to fill the gap between her 
income and her expenditure, is thus seen. But why, it will 
perhaps be asked, does Russia borrow at all under these cir- 
cumstances? For two reasons: First, to pay off more costly 
debts — loans previously contracted at a higher rate of interest 
— and thus to unify her debt, both for her own economy and 
for the convenience of her creditors ;f second, to construct pub- 
lic works necessary alike for the development of her national 
resources, and in order that many of the great industries which 
this development has already called into existence, and which 
largely depend upon Government orders for their support, may 
not languish and disappear, and thus perhaps fail her when 
she needs them most. This is what happens : Potential traffic 
justifies a new railway between two points; either the State 
finds the money in the first place, or it authorises a company 
to do so, and as the company cannot dispose of its bonds the 
State takes them over at second hand; the railway is constructed 
and gets to work; the State borrows abroad as much as it has 
lent to the railway; instead of the bonds on, say, blue paper 
of the railway, there are the bonds on, say, white paper of the 
Russian public debt. These are precisely the circumstances 
under which much of Russia's national indebtedness has been 
incurred. In conclusion, the truth is that the Russian Govern- 
ment is glad to borrow money, at a lower rate than before, 
to pay off debts bearing the higher interest, or to carry out 
productive works, for the reasons I have given above; but it 
is under no present necessity whatever — and has not been for 

* See Fonds (TEtat russes et aiitres Valeurs mobilieres (published by the Bulletin 
russe de Statistiqiie) 2nd ed., pp. 114-117. 

t Between 1887 and 1900 the Russian loans converted and redeemed in cash 
amounted to a grand total of ;^44 1,000, 000. 



366 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

twenty years — to borrow at rates which do not fulfil the above 
conditions.* 

As an offset to her national debt, Russia — I am speaking 
still of the State — has the unique good fortune to possess an 
annual income from actual property and investment which 
alone almost pays the annual charge upon the debt. The 
interest upon her debt is 670 millions of francs. The net earn- 
ings of her State railways, the revenue from her forests and 
agricultural domains, and profits of the Bank of Russia, with 
certain indemnities, etc., form together an annual income of 
650 million francs.f And her railways and domains are rapidly 
increasing in value. No other State has such a real security, 
as distinct from national credit, to offer its creditors. 

In 1898-99 the fiscal receipts from all sources exceeded 
the government expenditure (including £9,516,000 for ex- 
traordinary naval shipbuilding and £4,315,000 for expenses in 
mitigation of bad harvests) by £34,458,000. This surplus more 
than met the demands for the construction of the Siberian 
and other State Railways and purchase of rolling stock, 
£22,922,000, and advances of capital to railway companies 
for new construction, £9,000,000. 

The Russian State, which at the outbreak of the Crimean 
War had but a thousand kilometres of railway, to-day owns 
and operates 38,250 kilometres, of which 8,345 kilometres are 

*In May, 1901, a Russian four per cent, loan for 424,000,000 francs was floated 
in Paris, according to the Imperial u^az, ' ' in order to replace in the Imperial Treasury 
the sums spent in 1900 in advances to railroad companies, and to provide for similar 
advances to be made during the current year." This loan was subscribed several 
times over, the allotment being fifteen per cent, for paid-up bonds, and two-and-a-half 
for others. It is now stated that another loan for a thousand million francs (;^40,ooo,- 
000) will shortly be placed upon the same market. Prophecy, however, about Russian 
loans is always dangerous. In fact, even official assurances do not cover very long 
periods. " I authorise you," M. de Witte is reported to have said to a correspondent 
(Daily Telegraph, March 5, 1901), " to state over again, as emphatically as you know 
how, that I have no intention whatever of borrowing." Ten weeks later (May 12th) 
the Imperial ukaz authorising the loan was published. 

\ Bulletin Russe de Statistique Financiere, 1901, page 23. 



FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 367 

double-track. This is more than any other State in the world. 
Last year, in spite of financial crises and commercial depression, 
railway passengers increased in number more than a milUon, 
and the amount of freight carried was 86,000,000 tons against 
79,000,000 in 1899. The net annual revenue from the State 
railways alone pays half the interest upon the national debt.* 

Such are, necessarily in a very condensed form, the statistical 
facts concerning Russian national finance which are apparently 
quite unknown to the host of facile critics of contemporary 
Russia, and especially to those who believe that Russia spends 
right and left, upon all sorts of objects, the large sums she has 
borrowed in France. f 

I must allude for a moment to the only way in which these 
remarkable and impressive figures are directly attacked, namely, 
by the charge that they are not honest — that the Russian 
budget, in a word, is '' cooked." The allegation is neither fair 
nor intelligent. It is not fair, because none of those who make 
it ever give the grounds of their charge or any alternative or 
comparative figures in disproof of the official ones. And it is 
not intelligent, because the Russian budget, though it cannot 
but be complicated when dealing with such vast sums, does yield 
to the careful student every fact he desires to extract from it. 
Some official Russian statistics undoubtedly exaggerate— as, 

* The gross revenue of all the Russian State railways (excluding the Siberian, but 
including the Trans-Caspian) was in 1897 ;^2,035 per mile. 

f Even serious students of Russian economics fall, notwithstanding their care and 
good will, into this gross error. For example, Mr. Alexander Hume Ford, "an un- 
biassed American engineering traveller," contributing an interesting series of articles 
to the Engineering Magazine vi^oVi "Russia's marvellous industrial expansion and 
mechanical needs," writes: " It must not be lost sight of for a moment that Russia is 
spending every cent she can possibly borrow in developing her magnificent resources. 
New and mighty canals are to be cut, rivers and harbors deepened, arid lands irrigated, 
forests cleared and waste lands reclaimed ; cities, villages, and workshops are being 
built, colonies are planted in new localities, where modern systems of drainage and 
agriculture are being introduced." (April, 1901, page 39.) Nearly the whole of this 
attribution of Russian loans is entirely fanciful. I have explained above where the 
money really goes. 



368 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

for example, in reckoning mere forest-land as genuine timber- 
forest, but this exaggeration is always evident to the impartial 
student, and it does not appear in financial statistics, which are 
kept and presented with the utmost minuteness and detail. 
Compared with the French budget, the Russian annual balance- 
sheet is child's play. The difference is that the Russian Ministry 
of Finance desires for its own sake that its figures shall be 
understood, whereas the French budget is an elaborate conceal- 
ment, beneath colossal compHcations and endless cross-refer- 
ence, of unwelcome facts.* The memory of weary days 
devoted to the volumes of the French budget leads me to say 
that in it only those who hide can find. On the other hand, any 
statistical financial figure about Russia can be found without 
undue difficulty in the publications of the Ministry of Finance, 
or those issued semi-officially, with its cognizance and permis- 
sion. To suppose that the whole of these is one vast and 
marvellously-calculated network of deceit is childish. 

From la haute finance to the poor mujik is a longer step in 
appearance than in reality. I turn to the Russian peasant here 
because anyone who wishes, for whatever reason, to disparage 
the figures I have cited above can best do so by emphasising 
the condition of the masses of the Russian people. In spite of 
all her brilliant progress in manufacture, and iher great indus- 
trial development, Russia is still chiefly an agricultural country. 
The vast majority of her people draw their living from the soil 
and must long continue to do so, and the economic ideal of 
Russian statesmen should be to increase pari passu the material 
wants of the peasantry and their means of supplying them. 
Russia may — and I think, will, as the other nation of colossal 
natural resources developed behind a high tariff wall has done — 
become an exporting nation, but her best market will always 

* M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, the eminent French writer upon economics: "Our 
unhappy Budgets are retouched and altered to such an extent that it is impossible to 
recognize them or find one's way about in them." And see The Peoples and Politics 
of the Far East, pp. 124-127. 



FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 369 

be found under the roofs of her own people. It is but too true 
that the condition of the Russian peasantry is at present far 
from satisfactory. While the people have rapidly increased in 
number the amount of land communally owned and tilled by 
them has remained constant since the Liberation of the Serfs, 
with the result that the outcome per family has grown steadily 
less and therefore the standard of physical well-being has slowly 
declined. Moreover, the famous '' black earth " districts, the 
most fertile agricultural portions of the Empire, have been vis- 
ited, like the poorer lands, by repeated famine. A succession of 
bad harvests has been even more disastrous in Russia than else- 
where. It is not without reason, therefore, that the careful 
observer puts forward the suffering mvijik in reply to the splen- 
did figures of the Minister of Finance. 

The reply is effective as far as it goes, but it is not conclusive. 
Other countries have suffered from a succession of bad harvests, 
and there is no reason to believe that Russia will not enjoy the 
fat years of the cycle again. "^ I have taken some personal inter- 
est in agriculture, and I believe that we are on the eve of great 
advances in the chemical and even in the bacteriological fertil- 
isation of land. If this be so, Russia will profit more than any 
other country, and if I were Minister of Finance I would 
generously subsidise laboratories of experimental agricultural 
chemistry. The Government is fully alive to the condition of 
the peasantry, for it is expending many millions of roubles upon 
reHef, and employing thousands of poverty-stricken peasants up- 
on the public work most urgently needed in Russia — road-mak- 
ing. The last budget statement contains the news that the 
payment of no less than £12,000,000 of arrears of redemption 
of land by the peasant proprietors has been virtually regarded 
as a bad debt. Over a million sterling has been wiped off, and 

* Indeed, the commercial tide seems turning already. The Russian customs re- 
ceipts for the first half of 1901, just published, show an increase of no less than 
twenty-five per cent, over those for the first half of 1900 — 109,000,000 roubles against 
87,300,000. 



370 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

the payment of ten millions been '' distributed by instalments." 
The State monopoly of alcohol, and the improved condition of its 
sale, will tend to remove one of the contributing causes of the 
peasant's poverty. Siberian agriculture, too, is being opened 
up for and by the peasants. Moreover, agriculture was not 
unfortunate everywhere in Russia last year. Mr. Consul-Gen- 
eral Michell's Report says that " the harvest of 1900 in sixty 
provinces of Russia taken as a whole is considered fairly favour- 
able," it being 10.3 per cent, in excess of the average of the pre- 
vious five years. The total product of grain grown in 1900 is 
computed, according to the same authority, at 1,119,019,950 
cwts., lentils and beans 4,949,775 cwts., potatoes 513,891,289 
cwts., and 19,339 tons of butter were exported from Siberia 
alone. These figures should mitigate pessimism somewhat. 

Finally, M. de Witte's economic regime has for one of its 
main aims to provide a large proportion of the people with 
means of livelihood other than agriculture, and the production 
in a year of nearly 5,000,000 tons of steel and iron, and 60,- 
000,000 barrels of oil, and the raising of nearly 16,000,000 tons 
of coal, to say nothing of the large output of all the mills and 
factories of Moscow and Poland, means not a little employ- 
ment for peasants who a few years ago were all agricultural 
laborers.* 

Not only in agriculture, however, has Russia recently suf- 
fered severely. Her commerce and industry are still in a state 

*In order to show that "the results obtained fully justify the policy pursued by 
the Government," M. de Witte has just published statistics of the increase of produc- 
tion in four great classes during eight years. They may be tabulated as follows : 

Output in tons. Output in tons, 

1892. 1900. 

Coal 6,800,000 15,800,000 

Cast iron 1,050,000 2,850,000 

Wrought iron and steel 984,000 2,000,000 

Cotton goods 140,000 232,000 

Totals 8,974,000 20,882,000 



FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 371 

of great depression. British readers, at any rate, have not 
lacked full information upon this topic, for Mr. Cooke, British 
Commercial Agent in Russia, has industriously gathered and 
forcibly presented every fact and deduction that places Russian 
mineral and metallurgical enterprises in the most discouraging 
light.* I do not mean for a moment, of course, that he has 
sought to show the situation as blacker than it is, but only that, 
in my opinion, his Report would have been of greater service 
to the interests he represents in Russia if the lights and shadows 
had been more naturally balanced. Here is one example of what 
I mean. Mr. Cooke says: "The Russian iron industry has no 
market beyond the frontier. Some 100 tons of southern pig- 
iron, it is lately announced, have just been despatched from the 

Kertch works to Leghorn This new opening for 

Russian iron produce has been loudly acclaimed as offering 
another solution of present difficulties." But Mr. Vice-Consul 
Wardrop had already reported from Kertch, a fortnight earlier, 
that '' Perhaps the most noteworthy item in the exports is the 
pig-iron shipped to Marseilles and Rotterdam "—2,815 tons. 
And at the same time Mr. Vice-Consul Walton had reported 
from Mariupol as follows : " Some 50,000 tons of hematite have 
lately been sold to the north of Russia, and trial shipments have 
been made to Germany, France, and Belgium; thus not only is 
South Russia no longer a customer for pig-iron from abroad, 
but she is entering the market as a supplier of this commodity." 
I do not suggest, of course, that these small exports of iron from 
Russia necessarily presage an important new development of 
Russian industry, but I do say that the incident has its signifi- 
cance, and that this has been better appreciated by the old- 
fashioned Consuls in this case than by the modern Commercial 
Agent. And I think that the facts, if Mr. Cooke had known 
them, deserved some more balanced comment, for an iron- 

* "Mineral and Metallurgical Industries of Russia." Diplomatic and Consular 
Reports, Miscellaneous Series, No. 555. Foreign Office, June, 1901. 



372 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

exporting country like England, than '' The Russian iron 
industry has no market across the frontier." 

Mr. Cooke says that '' Russia became the playground for 
universal Bourse speculation." The word " universal " is too 
strong, and indeed elsewhere he places the cap where it fits. 
The present aspect of the industrial condition of Russia, so far 
as foreign investment is concerned, is, speaking roughly, the 
work of unscrupulous Belgian company-promoters, or per- 
haps more correctly speaking, of unscrupulous company-pro- 
moters working in Belgium because of the opportunities af- 
forded them by Belgian law. These gentlemen have taken 
advantage of the enthusiasm in Belgium and France for things 
Russian to float company after company, to build iron-works 
after iron-works, where it was perfectly evident that only bank- 
ruptcy could result. Some iron-works had no ore accessible, 
some no coal, some no Hmestone. The nominal capital was in 
every case enormous, the working capital absurdly insufficient. 
The promoters placed their shares, pocketed the huge " rake- 
ofif," and are now turning their malevolent attention to the Far 
East, while the unhappy investors in their Russian companies 
will lose almost every penny. I made careful inquiries on the 
spot, and I do not hesitate to say that a number of these Belgian 
and French enterprises were nothing better than swindles from 
the start. Some of them, as M. de Witte himself has just 
pointed out, with nominal capitals of millions of roubles, began 
operations without working capital, and even in debt. '' Nine- 
tenths of the foreign industrial enterprises initiated in Southern 
Russia during the last decade have in the first place been pro- 
moted exclusively for the personal aggrandisement of the pro- 
moters." — Odessa correspondent of the Staitdard, August 3, 
1901. For these failures Russia is unjustly condemned. She 
is no more to blame for them than England is to blame for the 
shocking record of liquidated companies on the London Stock 
Exchange. As Mr. Cooke himself says, '' Firmer or older-es- 



FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 373 

tablished enterprises even in the metallurgical industry, keeping 
their own steady course, apart from the wild run of speculation, 
have stood their ground." 

It is true, of course, that Russia has suffered a financial and 
economic crisis of the most serious kind. But is she alone in 
this misfortune? Is not the German iron industry in a similar 
position? Are there not 50,000 unemployed in BerHn? Are 
not German workmen being transported by the Government 
back to the land? Have not German banks collapsed right and 
left? In France, too, is there not a deficit of 110,000,000 francs 
in this year's budget? Have not the French taxes for the first 
ten months of the present year fallen short of the estimate by 
90,000,000 francs? Are not French wine-growers threatening 
to plough up their vineyards? And is the United Kingdom 
wholly without anxiety regarding its own economic outlook? 
If Russian national securities 'have fallen, what about Consols? 
Apart from the injurious effects of the South African War, these 
epochs of bad trade are cyclic and depression is far less likely 
to persist in Russia than in countries which possess neither the 
vast real wealth of her State nor the boundless natural resources 
of her country. For notwithstanding Russian development and 
production, the striking figures of which I have already given, 
her natural wealth is as yet hardly touched. Mr. Cooke says, 
in the Report already quoted: 

'' Not that there is not incalculable wealth, more especially 
mineral, in the vast dominions of the Russian Empire. The 
natural resources of the country, as is well known, are indeed 
enormous. The future, with such assets to realise, cannot but 
be of the most promising." 

American authorities are even more enthusiastic. Mr. Vice- 
Consul-General Hanauer says : " The vast Empire offers the 
best and most profitable field for our promoters of railway, 
electric, and other enterprises, for the construction of water- 
works and drainage systems, building streets and canals, works 



374 



ALL THE RUSSIAS 



in iron, making dry-docks and harbours, and opening mines. 
. . . I would recommend my countrymen to ' go East/ and 
employ their talent, time, money, and energy in Russia, which 
will return them ample compensation."* And Mr. Alexander 
Hume Ford, an engineering expert, after a journey of investi- 
gation in Russia for an important American technical review, 
concluded as follows : " In fact, Russia seems to stand to-day 
where America stood half a century ago, on the threshold of 
an industrial prosperity and development which must soon awe 
the world by its rapid and stupendous growth. It is here that 
the Goulds, Rockefellers, Huntingtons, Carnegies, and Flag- 
lers of the future will spring up and become all-powerful." f I 
myself have certainly become a convinced believer in the future 
industrial development of Russia, and in this development for- 
eign capital, which will be welcomed and will receive perfectly 
fair treatment, judiciously placed, after careful examination and 
without inflation of values — placed, that is, for investment and 
not for speculation, should — on one condition — play a large and 
a very profitable part. 

The directions in which foreign capital has been employed 
in Russia, or may be, are very numerous indeed. The cotton- 
spinning mills of Moscow and St. Petersburg are the first ex- 
ample that comes to mind, and their profits in the past have been 
enormous — reaching sometimes fifty per cent, and even more. 
The iron industry of to-day is largely a result of foreign en- 
terprise, and is certain of enormous development in the future. 
A commission of four experts, including Professor Mendele- 
yef, the celebrated chemist, appointed by the Tsar in 1899, 
reported that there are 2,400,000,000 tons of iron-ore in the 
Urals alone — ten million tons of pig-iron a year for a hundred 
years. 

* Report from Frankfort, June 20, 1899. 

+ Enf^ineering Magazine, April, 1901, page 41. 



FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 375 

The petroleum industry at Baku is almost entirely the work 
and the capital of foreigners, led by the great names of Roths- 
child and Nobel. Last year the Russian output of petroleum 
was greater than that of the United States, it is increasing, and 
important new fields are certain of discovery. Such a produc- 
tion in so short a time, would have been impossible unless 
foreign capital and wise and generous Russian regulations had 
worked hand in hand. 

During the ten years 1891 — 1900 Russia produced eleven 
and a half million ounces of fine gold. During the last four 
years the production has fallen off somewhat, but it is beyond 
question that there are valuable deposits still untouched in Si- 
beria, and that under a more enlightened official regime than 
that at present in force foreign enterprise would be able to ex- 
ploit them. The world has yet to learn, too, of the gold-fields 
of enormous wealth of which Russia has — by means also unap- 
preciated yet — become possessed. 

Russia has vast deposits of coal, but for some reason or 
other neither Russians nor foreigners are working them to any 
great extent. In vain has M. de Witte urged Russian capitalists 
and coal-owners to greater efforts in this direction. He has 
just sent the following sarcastic telegram to the Mining Con- 
gress sitting at Kharkor: " The owners of iron works and coal 
mines are continually complaining of the difificulty of selHng 
their products, and of the consequent restriction of the output. 
However, the imports of these products during the current year 
up to October ist amounted to 106,000 tons for cast iron and 
cast steel, to 54,000 tons for machines made of these materials, 
and to 2,970,000 tons for coal. In view of the very high customs 
duties imposed for the protection of home industries, I ask the 
Congress how it is to be explained that people can speak of a 
difficult situation in the face of such considerable imports of 
products which might be supplied by Russian industry." And 



376 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

a contract for 60,000 tons of coal for immediate delivery, at 
$12.24 ^ ton, is announced from New York as I write. In the 
great Donetz coal basin there is, I am sure, an important open- 
ing for foreign enterprise, especially as all Russian properties 
can be purchased cheaply for cash just now. 

The manganese industry of the Caucasus offers, so far as I 
am able to judge, a remarkable opportunity for judicious invest- 
ment of a certain kind, and, indeed, the mineral development of 
the whole Caucasus district will probably astonish the world 
some day. As for the Urals, their extraordinary richness in 
minerals is a matter of common knowledge, but few people 
realise what openings they present for foreign capital. Central 
Asia is as yet an unknown land to engineers and capitalists, but 
the opportunities there for a combination of the two — and I 
speak from careful examination on the spot — are great, and 
cannot fail to be seized before long. 

The forests of Russia, with the price of timber steadily rising 
and the demand for wood-pulp always increasing, also ofifer a 
further opportunity, and joinery mills, since Russian workmen 
are exceptionally clever carpenters, should be successful. The 
manufacture of hardware, linoleum, and many small objects now 
imported from Germany, should pay handsomely. Already an 
important ShefHeld firm is preparing to manufacture files and 
tools in Russia.* And there are many openings for imported 

* I quote the following interesting testimony from the Odessa correspondent of the 
Standard : " Lodz, known now as the Russian or Polish Manchester, is a prominent 
example of successful foreign industrial enterprise. Fifteen years ago it was a place 
of some ten or twelve thousand inhabitants; its population, wholly industrial, now 
numbers close upon four hundred thousand. In order to escape the prohibitively high 
Russian duties, and still push their trades in the Russian markets, a host of German, 
Austrian, Belgian, and French manufacturers have, so to say, brought their mills and 
factories over the Russian frontier, and, with scarcely an exception, they are all flour- 
ishing. As, generally speaking, all British manufactures have an exceptionally high 
reputation in this country, there is no reason why British manufacturers should not 
start operations in Russia with even greater success than that which has so abundantly 
crowned the enterprise of the Lodz cosmopolitans." 



FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 377 

British goods, if intelligently brought before the consum- 
ers.* 

This summary by no means exhausts the directions in which 
M. de Witte's policy of educational protection invites foreign 
capital to come and establish a healthy competition with men 
and means in Russia. So far only a few capitaHsts have dis- 
covered Russia and her economic regime; they are chiefly Eng- 
lishmen and Belgians, with comparatively few French and 
German companies. 

Not that joint-stock enterprise does not already exist on a 
large scale, for of Russian companies no fewer than 580 declared 
a dividend during the first nine months of 1901, their total 
nominal capital being £105,000,000, and their average dividend 
no less than 10. i per cent. But it may be regarded as certain 
that unless some international catastrophe should interrupt 
peaceful relations, men and associations with large sums of 
money to invest will turn their attention and their talents more 
and more toward Russia. 



After so many general considerations it may interest the 
reader to see a foreign company in Russia actually at work. I 
will therefore try to picture for him the best I saw. 

In the south of Russia there is a large flourishing town, 

♦ I cannot do better than to copy here the printed letter which Captain Murray, 
the energetic British Consul-General at Warsaw, has prepared to send to his many 
unintelligent British correspondents : 

"I beg to acknowledge the receipt of the price-list which you have been good 
enough to send me, but of which I regret that I am unable to make any use, as it is in 
English, as are also the details and prices given in it. 

"To bring goods to the notice of buyers in this country price-lists must be in the 
Russian, Polish, or German languages, and all dimensions and prices must be in 
Russian weights, measures, and money, and moreover, the prices given should be 
those at which the goods can be obtained from your agents in Russia, or if you have 
no regular agents, full details should be given as to probable cost of freight, duty, 
etc., to give the buyer some idea of what the goods will cost him if he imports them 
himself." 



378 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

owned entirely by Englishmen, the seat of a great and pros- 
perous industry, created by Englishmen, the most striking 
example of how foreign enterprises, wisely conducted under 
Russian laws, may thrive in Russia. Few people know of this, 
nor did I until I began to investigate the conditions attaching 
to foreign investments in Russia and to look for a typical case 
to describe. Yet such is the town of Usofka, the site of the New 
Russia Company, Ltd. You will not, by the way, find its shares 
in the Hst of quotations; they are all privately held, and nobody 
who has any would be likely to sell. 

The founder of Usofka was the late John Hughes, the son 
of a blacksmith of Merthyr. He was at one time manager of the 
Millwall Iron-works, on the Thames; he built the Plymouth 
Breakwater Fort; and he made his first acquaintance with Russia 
by building the Constantine Fort at Kronstadt in 1864. His 
friendship with Todleben, the defender of Sevastopol and the 
saviour of the situation before Plevna, had something to do with 
his interest in Russia. Under Imperial protection he was sent 
to the south to search for coal. He found it, and the New 
Russia Company is the outcome. Now the management of the 
great concern is in the hands of his sons, and to them I have 
to express my warm thanks for hospitality and most interesting 
opportunities of inspection. 

The railway station of Usovo and the town of Usofka are 
both named after John Hughes. They lie in the extreme south 
of Russia, just north of the Sea of Azov and about a third of 
the way from Rostov to Odessa. Much thumbing of the time- 
table is necessary to get there. As I came up the Black Sea 
from Batum, I left the steamer at Novorossisk (where there is 
the largest grain elevator in the world) and went by train to 
Rostov. Thence to Khartsisk, and thence again to Yasinova- 
taya — fairly unknown country, as you see. There at dusk a 
phaeton and dashing pair awaited me, and an eighteen-verst 



FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 379 

drive, quickly covered, across the steppe, brought me to my 
destination. As I entered the house a valse of Chopin was being 
played on the piano. " You will find us in the billiard-room, 
when you have dressed," said my host. It seemed like a dream, 
so much civilisation, all of a sudden, after months spent in pro- 
vincial Russia, in Siberia, and in Central Asia. 

The New Russia Company's estate, owned, not leased, ex- 
tends to some 60,000 acres. Half of this is coal-bearing land, 
and one-half of this half shows enough coal to last the company 
for two hundred years. In fact, the company sells coal, and no 
iron-works would do this unless there was plenty to spare. 
Some distance away there are 2,700 acres of Hmestone property. 
The supply of iron comes from the hematite mines of Krivei- 
rog, where the ore averages from fifty-eight to sixty-five per 
cent, of metallic iron. These mines, of which the New Russia 
Company's share is 2,500 acres, are about three hundred miles 
away. There is enough ore in sight to last the company for 
from fifteen to twenty years. After that a fresh supply must be 
found. Its source is hardly a secret. 

The manufacturing side of Usofka is like a huge iron-works 
anywhere else — a forest of chimneys, belching forth smoke and 
steam; a row of blast-furnaces, clouding the day and illuminat- 
ing the night; great stretches of coke ovens; mountains of slag; 
acres of workshops; miles of railway with banging trucks and 
shrieking engines — the whole familiar industrial inferno. Be- 
side it are two of the colliery pit-heads, and adjoining it on the 
other side is the town. This has no resemblance to a Russian 
provincial town; it is regularly laid out, its houses are solidly 
built and neatly kept, indeed many of them are luxurious; there 
is a whole street of capital shops, a co-operative store, a public 
garden, a branch of the Imperial Bank, a Cossack barrack. The 
streets are numbered on the American plan, and are called 
" Lines " — there are fifty " Lines," if I remember aright. The 
whole place, as a glance shows, is prosperous and well gov- 



38o ALL THE RUSSIAS 

erned. It has no fewer than 30,000 inhabitants, and no other 
raison d'etre than the New Russia Company, Ltd. Close the 
iron-works, and next week this town, as big as Colchester or 
Topeka, would be deserted. 

The pay-sheet of Usofka contains 12,000 men, and £50,000 
a month is paid in wages. This gives some idea of the scale of 
the company's operations, and of the benefit to Russia which 
this foreign enterprise confers. But the figures of output are 
perhaps even more informative. There are six large blast- 
furnaces, five working, and one kept in reserve. These are 
worked with what I believe is called a ** ten-pound pillar." In 
1899 the output of pig-iron was 335,000 tons. For the produc- 
tion of steel there are ten open-hearth furnaces (into which the 
metal is carried hot — an improvement, unless I am mistaken, 
upon English methods) and two Bessemer converters. During 
the year preceding my visit 50,000 tons of steel billets were 
produced. The rolling-mills, in which I noticed that an electric 
trolley carried the red-hot ingots from one rolHng-table to an- 
other — a very useful Httle time-saver introduced locally — turned 
out last year 150,000 tons of rails. Besides this, 10,000 tons of 
'' merchant iron " and 8,000 tons of " Spiegeleisen " were pro- 
duced and sold. From the company's coal mines, six in all, 
650,000 tons were lifted, of which about 30,000 tons were sold. 
The company made and used 350,000 tons of coke, and bought 
more besides, and it raised from its own mines at Krivei-rog 
500,000 tons of iron ore. One other interesting item is that 
the company has a large farm adjoining the town, for the pro- 
duction of vegetables and forage, and that it ploughs every year 
some 8,000 acres of land. 

To complete the appreciation of this great industrial enter- 
prise, and its significance for Russia, two other facts should be 
borne in mind: first, that in 1870 there were only a few huts on 
the steppe where now this busy town thrives; and second, that 
the whole of the output during these thirty years has been 



FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 381 

used in Russia, and not a yard or a pound sent to any other 
country. 

The workmen at a Russian place Hke this present many 
contrasts with labour elsewhere. Originally they were all from 
the land, attracted for a time by the higher wages, or actually 
driven from home by poverty. They worked in the mill for a 
few months and then took their savings back to the village 
home. Many of them are still of this class, but now these stay 
as a rule for three or four years, and there has in addition grown 
up a regular working class, dissociated forever from the soil. 
The growth of this proletariat is one of the most striking devel- 
opments in modern Russia, and in time will undoubtedly trans- 
form many old conditions. Their wages are both low and high 
— low in actual money, high because the labour is inefidcient. 
The lowest rate is 80 kopecks, about i^^. Sd. or forty cents, a day, 
and this rises, with the skill and responsibility of the recipient, 
until rollers and fitters and furnace-men draw from three and 
a half to four roubles, say ys. 6d. to 8s. 6d. — $1.75 to $2 — a day. 
Moreover, any factory in Russia is handicapped by the great 
number of saints' days and Imperial fete-days, when work ceases 
by ofificial order. In fact the working-days only average about 
twenty-one a month. The character of the labourers may be 
judged from the fact that they occasionally take a nap upon the 
railway line! I myself saw a man stretched on his face fast 
asleep on the iron plates which form the roof of a blast-furnace, 
with his head a few inches from a shaft up which at any moment 
poisonous gases might burst. 

Foreign enterprises in Russia usually either fail or pay what 
would be regarded in England, at any rate, as very large divi- 
dends; and if they fail it is generally from their own fault. But 
they have to face a good many conditions which an English or 
American employer would consider intolerable at home. For 
instance, the precautions they have to take against accidents are 
infinite, and if a man is killed the police procedure which follows 



382 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

is a perfect inquisition. For example, the foreign head of the 
department in which the victim worked cannot leave the 
country until a verdict is reached and penalties inflicted, and 
the various trials and inquiries may last a year or more. Again, 
in Russia the State imposes upon private enterprise obligations 
which elsewhere it discharges itself. At Usofka, since I am 
taking this as a typical business, the company has to support 
schools in which are eight hundred scholars; a hospital, in 
which there are one hundred beds and six doctors; a force of 
police consisting of three head constables, four sub-constables^ 
and seventy-six men; and even to make a contribution to the 
guard of one hundred and fifty mounted Cossacks quartered in 
the town. 

Besides these obligations, the company has two Russian 
taxes to pay. First, the zemstvo taxes — call them rates. These 
amount to £10,000. Second, a new cumulative tax on general 
profits, and, as the New Russia Company had paid a dividend 
of fifty per cent., this tax was ten per cent. Third, as this is an 
English company, there is the income tax at home. 

But even yet I have not touched upon the severest handicap 
of all. This can only be explained rather technically. Iron- 
masters will understand it, and others must believe that it is 
far harder than exists elsewhere in the world. I allude to the 
tests which the material supplied to Government, of course a 
customer much larger than all the rest put together and doubled, 
has to pass before it is accepted. 

Take rails, for instance, very much the most important item. 
First, a 35-foot rail must not vary in length more than three 
millimetres from the standard. Second, a 5-foot rail, previously 
frozen, placed upon supports 3 feet apart, receives two blows 
from a half-ton '^ monkey," falling from a height of from 8i^ to 
9i feet according to the weight of the rail, and must not break 
or show any defect. Third, after a deflection test of from 14 to 
17 tons pressure the rail must not show a permanent " set " of 



FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 383 

more than .75 millimetre. Fourth, a tensile strain of 65 kilos. 
to the square millimetre (about 40 tons to the square inch) must 
not produce an elongation of more than six per cent. And fifth, 
the figure produced by this strain, added to the elongation and 
multiplied by 2, must reach eighty-two. I am assured that a 
British or American railmaker would refuse a contract requiring 
these tests, which at Usofka are scrupulously applied by a com- 
mittee of Russian engineers. 

Still I have not done with the hard side. After all these 
conditions, obligations, taxes, and tests, it might be thought 
that the company could put its own price upon its output. But 
it is not the company which fixes the price — the Minister of 
Finance fixes it for it. When I was at Usofka the Government 
was giving its orders for steel rails at the price of one rouble 
ten kopecks a poud, which I work out as the equivalent of £7 4^. 
per ton. A year previously the price was 1.35 roubles. The 
Government gives its order and you take it or leave it. 

Poor foreign enterprise in Russia ! Well, not exactly. Mr. 
Hughes went ofif to look for a fresh cue when I hinted a curi- 
osity concerning the dividends of the New Russia Company^ 
but I had a suspicion that if anybody could buy its shares at 
many times their par value he would think (himself lucky. I 
afterward looked up these dividends for the last ten years and 
found them to be as follows: Nineteen per cent., sixteen per 
cent., twenty-eight per cent., thirty per cent., twenty-four per 
cent., one hundred and twenty-five per cent., fifteen per cent., 
twenty per cent., twenty-five per cent., twenty per cent. And 
at one point in this pleasing record the share capital was 
doubled ! Indeed a list of the concerns working in Russia, with 
foreign capital, which have paid between fifteen and- fifty per 
cent, dividend would make the foreign investor's mouth water. 

In conclusion, since I have described foreign enterprise in 
Russia as typified in this great English business, I must add one 
word of reservation. The New Russia Company was founded 



384 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

when foreign capital was admitted under easier conditions than 
exist nowadays, for to-day the Government would not sell such 
properties outright, as it did in 1870. Moreover, John Hughes, 
who founded it, had the foresight of a commercial Prometheus. 
But I do not hesitate to say that for the foreign capitalist, if 
he knows where and how to go to work, there are opportunities 
to-day as promising as those which Mr. Hughes foresaw and 
utilised thirty years ago. 



As so much ignorance prevails about Russia, and the general 
opinion of the world takes an unfavourable and unjust view of 
her economic position and her commercial possibilities, I have 
naturally been led to give prominence to facts favourable to her 
and attractive to others. But I would not be thought to suggest 
that fortunes are to be picked up in Russia more than elsewhere, 
or that it is sufificient merely to bring capital into the country to 
reap an immediate and rich pecuniary harvest. Far from it. 
In Russia, as elsewhere, plenty of people are waiting to sell you 
the worthless thing at the top price. Moreover, the conditions 
of Russian industrial and commercial life are peculiar, and no 
enterprise can succeed which does not take them closely into 
account. Every country presents its own particular dififtculties, 
and Russia at least as many as any other. There is here a way 
to do things, and a way not to do them. The openings for for- 
eign capital are naturally known to comparatively few. More- 
over, if the present policy of the State were to change its 
direction or lose its vigour, all the future relations of Russia 
and foreigners would be different. Foreign faith in Russian 
economic freedom is as yet a tender plant, and it might easily 
be blighted. So far, however, Russia's record is a good one. 
Nobody ihas ever lost a farthing by trusting the Russian State. 
The ofificial conditions of the investment of foreign capital are 
more Hberal than those of the United States, and the official atti- 



FINANCE, COMMERCE, AND INDUSTRY 385 

tude is one of sympathy and intelligence.* And so long as his 
Majesty Nicholas XL rules over All the Russias, and M. de Witte 
is his Minister of Finance, or the successors to Tsar and Min- 
ister are equally far-seeing and wise-minded, there need be no 
fear that these conditions and this attitude will be altered. In- 
deed, among the many reasons Russia has for substantial grati- 
tude toward her present Tsar, the fact that he should so clearly 
perceive M. de Witte's patriotic genius and firmly uphold him 
against his many enemies, constitutes by no means the least. 

In conclusion, however, I must pen one word of frank and 
serious warning. I have previously expressed the belief that 
foreign capital will play a large and a profitable part in Russian 
industrial development — on one condition. That condition is 
if greater official expedition and more business-like meth- 
ods — the methods of the western world, in fact — are employed 
in dealing with the foreign investor. At present the weari- 
some delay often experienced in conducting negotiations with 
the Russian authorities is a most serious obstacle. Foreign 
capital is ardently desired; the greatest intelligence is shown 
in examining any proposal; if the latter is found good, official 
promises of help are freely and sincerely given; and then the 
foreigner believes that he is about to accomplish something. 
Great is his disappointment. Delay after delay, for no conceiv- 
able cause, supervenes; months pass, and he is not one step 
nearer his goal; a definite conclusion of any kind seems the one 
thing he cannot obtain. Not seldom he abandons his enterprise 
in despair, and goes away with his money and his indignation. 
All this, so far as it is not temperamental in the Russian, is due 

* The following paragraph occurs in a letter recently addressed officially to the 
Times by M. Tatistcheff, the representative of the Ministry of Finance in London : 
"The Imperial Government, far from putting obstacles in the way of foreign, and es- 
pecially British, investments in Russian commercial and industrial enterprises, is, on' 
the contrary, in every way disposed to encourage and favour and to authorise to 
operate in Russia those companies which are based on sound commercial principles 
and solid capital being able by their financial organisation to guarantee the successfully 
carrying out of their undertakings." 



386 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

chiefly to two causes: first, the very few officials who have 
authority really to conclude anything and lay it before the Tsar 
are overwhelmed with work, always long in arrear; and second, 
even when one of these is anxious to expedite matters, every 
individual of a small army of subordinate functionaries is able 
to interpose objection after objection, and to heap technicality 
upon technicality in the way. If these obstacles are removed, 
there is plenty of foreign capital awaiting investment in Russia. 
If not, it will go elsewhere. 

Postscript. — Since this chapter was in type M. de Witte's Report to the Emperor 
on the Budget for 1902 has been issued. It is a State document of great interest, re- 
markable for the frankness with which the Minister of Finance states and discusses 
the depressed condition of Russian agricuhure and industry. It contains nothing 
calling for any modification of the views expressed in this chapter — on the contrary, 
it strongly confirms them. A few of its statistics may be briefly given. 

The ordinary and extraordinary revenue for 1902 falls short of the same two classes 
of expenditure by 144 million roubles (about ;,ri5,ooo,ooo) — a sum which the "free 
balance" of the Treasury is more than sufficient to meet. (In 1901 the corresponding 
deficit was 57 million roubles, met from the same source.) The increases of revenue, 
in millions of roubles, are: Spirits, 9.4; railways, 35.3; customs, 8.8; forests, 8.2; 
excise on sugar, 7; tax upon trade, 3.4; post-office, 2.4. The decreases are: Reim- 
bursement of loans, 6.7; mining tax, 2.8; land redemption, 2.4. The amount as- 
signed for all educational purposes will be 74.8 million roubles. Military expenditure 
in the Far East (not including a very considerable sum taken from the ordinary bud- 
get) is 18.6 millions. Assistance to peasants amounts to 20 millions. The decrease 
of net amount of national debt in ten years is 1,143.8 millions. During the same 
period, 1892- 1902, the increase in the railway property of the State and in recoverable 
debts reaches the huge figure of 2,251.9 million roubles. In 1900 the State made a 
small net profit upon its railways, even taking into account the loss on the Siberian 
lines. During the past ten years the Treasury has found a sum equal to double the 
increase of the National Debt for that period, for the construction and expropriation of 
railways. The yield of cereals for 1901 was 3,800,000 tons below the average of the 
previous five years — equal to a decrease of ^^lo, 500,000 in purchasing power. The 
five successive bad harvests represent a general deficit of the purchasing capacity of 
the population of over ten million sterling. The "satisfactory estimates for 1902, "and 
the " favourable fulfilment of the budget for 1901," says M. de Witte, afford " a clearer 
and more convincing proof of Russia's financial stability than the most brilliant suc- 
cess during a time of universal prosperity." 



FOREIGN POLITICS 



CHAPTER XXIV 
RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 

THE reader of this volume has now considered the six 
great divisions of interest in contemporary Russia — the 
Hfe of her two capitals, her vast Siberian territory and its great 
railway, the people and problems of the multifarious Caucasus, 
her new and successful empire of Central Asia with its present 
and prospective railway system, her dependency of Finland, and 
the career and policy of the man who, under the Tsar, chiefly 
directs her contemporary development. There remains, in con- 
clusion, the vital question : whither is this colossal conglomera- 
tion tending? In other words, what is to be the future of Rus- 
sia? Interesting as are her separate aspects, their chief impor- 
tance and significance for other people lie in their joint and 
several contributions to the solution of the problem of her future 
destiny among the nations of the earth. He would be a bold 
— not to say an untrustworthy — writer who would try to give 
a precise answer to the above question; but an examination 
of the international conditions surrounding Russia, sufificient 
perhaps to enable the reader who has followed me thus far to 
make for himself a forecast in general terms, may be attempted 
without over-confidence. 

The future of Russia, far more than that of any other coun- 
try, depends upon her relations with other nations. Three 
Powers of the world enjoy a certain geographical isolation which 
endows them with a corresponding measure of political inde- 
pendence. These are: first, the United States; second, Japan; 
and third. Great Britain. Except where it touches an entirely 

387 



388 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

friendly Power, the United States may be said to have no fron- 
tiers at all. The map of Europe might be repainted without 
affecting them. There is no great nation, except England, 
whose fall or aggrandisement would make it a whit the more 
or less secure. In a much smaller degree this is true of Great 
Britain, whose only frontiers are in Canada and along her 
Indian boundaries. Japan, too, is a Power which, except in 
so far as she considers Korea to be ultimately her own, has no 
borders that her battle-ships cannot protect. The converse is 
truer of Russia than of any other nation; with the exception 
of the United States, France, and Italy there is no Great Power 
whose frontier does not run with her own. A glance at a small 
scale map impresses this vital fact. Beginning at the North, 
the Russian land-frontier skirts successively Sweden,* Germany, 
Austria, Roumania (and through Roumania, the other Balkan 
countries of Bulgaria and Servia), Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, 
India, China, and (in Korea) Japan. Moreover, Russia has 
created an intimate relationship with the one Great Power 
whose frontiers do not touch her own — France; and by mar- 
riage and by protection she has interwoven her affairs with the 
two remaining countries of the Balkan chessboard — Greece and 

* As I shall not have occasion to mention Sweden again in this connection I may 
say here that a curious disquiet, probably without any real basis, exists at present in 
Scandinavia regarding Russia. A number of Russian spies or surveyors are said to 
have been discovered lately in Scandinavia, disguised as pedlars, knife-grinders, etc., 
or accompanying genuine specimens of these. This seems incredible, but I have been 
assured by Swedes that it is undoubtedly true. It is certain, at any rate, that the 
Swedish Government is giving remarkable attention to its own military position, having 
under consideration, amongst other matters, a bill, to take effect immediately, to aug- 
ment the period of compulsory military service from ninety days to twelve months. 
So noticeable is this military movement that the Russian press has remarked that "if 
the dual Scandinavian kingdom were hastily preparing for war it could scarcely mani- 
fest a more feverish energy than it is now applying to the increase of its offensive and 
defensive power." The correspondent who quotes this adds that "money is being 
lavishly spent on the improvement and strengthening of old, and on the construction 
of new, fortresses. A new first-class fortress and a camp capable of accommodating 
sixty thousand troops will shortly be completed at Boden, the most strategic point in 
the north of Sweden." 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 389 

Montenegro, and through the latter, which is virtually a Rus- 
sian dependency, she is in close touch with the House of Savoy. 
Thus, no political or status-threatening question can arise in 
any nation of the world — always excepting the United States 
— which does not immediately and vitally affect her own inter- 
ests. Therefore I say that the future of Russia, far more than 
that of any other country, depends upon her relations with 
other nations. What is for the rest of mankind a merely humani- 
tarian motto, nihil humani a me alienum puto, is perforce for 
Russia the first axiom of foreign policy. 

The strange bridal of Russia and France — the alliance of 
autocracy and democracy — has been familiar to all the world 
since the bands of the French warships at Kronstadt played 
the Marseillaise, the hymn of the revolution, before Alexander 
III., whose father had fallen at the hands of revolutionists. 
This momentous event was the direct result of the change of 
German policy, marked by the downfall of Bismarck and the 
refusal of Count Caprivi to renew the secret treaty with Rus- 
sia by which Bismarck had unscrupulously sought to *' hedge " 
against his allies of the Triple Alliance. Germany, moreover, 
turned to Turkey — thereby adding to a negative anti-Russian 
policy a positive and indeed, in Russian eyes, an aggressive one 
— and Russia turned to France. 

Only since the Tsar's last visit to France has there been pub- 
lished what appears to be a correct account of the contents of 
the document constituting the Dual Alliance.* After the first 
development of the Franco-Russian entente, when a French fleet 
under Admiral Gervais visited Kronstadt, M. Ribot being Min- 
ister of Foreign Affairs, a Military Convention was signed, in 
1891. This stipulated that if either nation were attacked by 
Germany, the other should come to its aid with a certain speci- 

* Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, September 21, and La LiberU, an interview with 
M. Jules Hansen, September 26, 1901. 



390 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

fied force. The word '' alliance " did not occur, nor was it 
used in any of the official speeches. This Convention appears 
to have been extended in 1894, but it was not until President 
Felix Faure's visit to Russia, in 1896, that the final step so much 
desired by France was taken, a formal treaty of alliance being- 
signed in 1897 and announced to the world by the Tsar's 
famous words, nations amies et alliees, in his speech on board 
the Pothuau. 

This treaty gains greatly in scope and significance by the 
omission of all direct reference to Germany. It declares that 
if either nation is attacked, the other will come to its assistance 
with the whole of its own military and naval forces, and that 
peace shall only be concluded in concert and by agreement be- 
tween the two. No other casus belli is mentioned, no term is 
fixed to the duration of the treaty, and the whole instrument 
consists of only a few clauses. 

If this account be correct, and there seems no reason to 
doubt that it is substantially so, a more pacific document could 
hardly be devised. So pacific, indeed, is it, that as the leading 
Hungarian paper remarked, it only serves to guarantee to Ger- 
many the undisturbed possession of Elsass and Lothringen. 
Its pacific character, moreover, was pointedly emphasised by 
the Tsar in his last speech at Compiegne, when he described the 
French army, whose magnificent evolutions he had just wit- 
nessed, as " a powerful support of the principles of equity upon 
which repose general order, peace, and the well-being of na- 
tions " — a phrase in which some commentators have seen, prob- 
ably with justice, an allusion to the international Court of Arbi- 
tration at the Hague. And I may add that from all I learned 
in Russia I believe the Tsar would be more likely to draw the 
sword to compel some international dispute to be settled by 
arbitration instead of by war, than for any other object. 

The Treaty of Alliance, it is added, had an important financial 
corollary. In return for the guarantee afforded to France 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 391 

against German aggression, and to free Russia from her finan- 
cial dependence upon Berlin, it was agreed that Russia should 
be allowed to contract loans upon the Paris market to the total 
amount of 1,500,000,000 francs, in three or four series. 

The Dual Alliance has naturally had for result to confer 
upon France a confidence and a calm she had not previously 
felt — or rather to relieve her from a fear which need have had 
no terrors for her, while Russia ^as enjoyed a military prestige 
beyond that to which her own arms entitle her, for it has been 
believed that, though she might exert a restraining influence 
upon France, the latter would be ready enough to make any 
Russian quarrel her own. But practically the Dual Alliance has 
had chiefly a financial result — the investment of many hundreds 
of millions of francs in Russian immovable securities — for it is 
largely in repaying State advances to Russian railways that the 
French loans have been employed. The Russian alliance has 
not saved France from attack, for nobody has dreamed of 
attacking her; and on the one occasion when she might have 
drawn the sword — about Fashoda — the influence of St. Peters- 
burg was, with profound wisdom, used in the interests of peace. 

It is commonly said that France is growing somewhat tired 
of this one-sided bargain, and that she is alive to the fact that, 
while Russia is adding enormously to her sphere in the Far 
East, she herself stands where she did before the fetes of Kron- 
stadt and Toulon. I think that in a certain degree this is un- 
doubtedly the case. The jest that when the charlotte russe was 
placed upon the mess-table, the French officers rose and 
cheered, would have no point to-day. Moreover, the genera- 
tion which fought in 1870 is dying out, and the new genera- 
tion has forgotten Deroulede's war-poems, and only looks upon 
him as the rather ridiculous conspirator of an impossible 
" plebiscitary republic." The Kaiser, too, ceases not his friendly 
overtures — witness the distinguished reception of French officers 
at the German manoeuvres, the abandonment of the annual 



392 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

military banquet at Metz in celebration of the surrender at 
Sedan, and the motor-car race from Paris to Berlin — an event 
inconceivable ten years ago. The Emperor William II. has set 
his heart upon certain aims which are before him now at every 
waking instant. To the realisation of these Russia will inevi- 
tably be opposed. Therefore it is of the most urgent importance 
to him to allay French resentment and if possible secure French 
neutrality, and to this end he will spare no effort and stop at 
no step short of the actual relinquishment of territory. Such 
an attitude on the part of Germany is obviously calculated to 
undermine the foundations of the alliance of France with Rus- 
sia. I do not think it unreasonable to suppose that some day 
the Kaiser will succeed in his earnest desire to visit Paris, and 
from that moment the Dual Alliance will possess only an anti- 
quarian interest, so far as it regards Germany. So far as Eng- 
land is concerned, its French support will be further weakened 
by the improvement in the relations between the two nations, 
which seems happily in prospect. Finally, the rapidly approach- 
ing financial embarrassment of France herself* may make it diffi- 
cult for Russia to raise on the Paris market the remainder of the 
vast sum mentioned in connection with the signature of the 
Treaty of Alliance, and is certainly likely to cause her investors 
to be more sensible to the great depreciation of the Russian 
securities they already hold. The following statement recently 
appeared simultaneously in a number of French newspapers, 
thus having the character of a communique inspired from some 
quarter : 

• The French budget for 1902 is arranged to show a nominal surplus of 7,770,519 
francs. In reality, there is a deficit of no less than 101,660,897 francs. During the 
ten months ending October 31, 1901, the revenue from taxation was less by 140,000,. 
000 francs than for the corresponding ten months of 1900, and less than the budget 
estimate by 91,000,000 francs. A new loan of 265,000,000 has been issued. It must 
be added, however, that this loan, though issued at par, was covered twenty-four times 
over. Lord Rosebery has just reminded us that the debt of the city of Paris is ;^8o,- 
000,000, and that this year there is a deficit in the municipal budget of ;^8oo,000. 
The French national debt was already over ;i^i, 202,000,000. 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 393 

" The enormous fall wlhich has occurred in all Russian stocks 
is calculated to disquiet French capitalists heavily involved in 
them. It is of the highest importance for them to be accu- 
rately informed on the possible consequences of this fall, which 
in the case of some stocks is only temporary and may even be 
profited by, but which, in the case of a large number, is but 
the signal for inevitable discomfiture." For this reason Rus- 
sian enthusiasm for the alliance may also wane,* though the Tsar 
himself will doubtless continue to attach the greatest importance 
to it for the immense support it gives him in his efforts for in- 
ternational peace. 

On the whole, therefore, though the Dual Alliance will 
linger long in name, most competent observers believe that its 
political potency will be a diminishing quantity, unless, through 
the improvement of relations between Russia and Great Britain, 
the latter become a kind of sleeping partner in it, or unless those 
relations grow more unfriendly, and Great Britain allies herself 
to some other Power. Its moral effect, however, will last as 

♦ A significant proof of the very limited scope of the Dual Alliance has been 
furnished by the attitude of the Russian press (which would not have been tolerated 
by the authorities if it had run counter to their own views) upon the French seizure of 
Mitylene to compel the Sultan to satisfy a number of French pecuniary and political 
claims. "It has naturally been assumed abroad," wrote the St. Petersburg corre- 
spondent of The Times, ' ' that France has not acted as she has done without the 
approval of Russia, even if she has not been guided by the advice of her powerful ally. 
The attitude of the Russian press renders this view untenable. . . . The action 
of France in taking direct and energetic measures to punish the Sultan for his insolent 
evasions is regarded without sympathy, and even with disapproval and alarm." More- 
over, the charge that Russia, the ally of France, and Russia alone, supported the 
Sultan against the legitimate and unaggressive demands of France, has just been made 
with great weight and directness by a high French authority. Professor Victor 
Berard, of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, a well-known writer upon foreign politics, in 
the Revue de Paris for December 15, 1901, analyses the European situation to find out 
by whose support the Sultan was encouraged to resist France to the last moment, and 
this is his answer: "One Power alone appeared to hesitate, and for two months of 
the ten weeks of the Turk's obstinacy withheld its opinion. It was not till early in 
November that we learned from an official note that M. ZinovieflF [Russian ambassador 
in Constantinople] had in person urgently advised the Palace and the Porte to yield tO' 
the French injunctions." 



394 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

long as the present Tsar fills the throne of Russia and continues 
to resist the reactionary and bellicose among his own surround- 
ings. In any case, it has hitherto been an alliance of peace, and on 
that ground the future will call it blessed. 



The relations of Russia and Germany make a very different 
story. They are concerned with the future, and with a coming 
situation possibly more delicate and more pregnant than any- 
thing since the fall of the first Napoleon — a situation, moreover, 
that may burst upon us any day between night and morning. 

To understand this, it is necessary to look back a little. The 
keynote of Bismarck's foreign policy was — keep on good terms 
with Russia. To that he subordinated, and, if needful, was ready 
to sacrifice, every other German interest abroad. For that, he 
went so far as to play a crooked game with Germany's chief 
partner in the Triple Alliance. For that, he contemptuously 
declared that the Balkans were " not worth the bones of a Prus- 
sian grenadier," because Russia desired to extend her influence 
there. For that, he even condoned that barefaced outrage, the 
Russian plot to kidnap Prince Alexander of Bulgaria, a Ger- 
man prince. For that, he inspired his reptile press to stir up 
ill-will with England, and himself even launched a most offen- 
sive insult against the British royal house, because he knew 
that Russia would be instantly alarmed by a rapprochement be- 
tween Germany and England, but would remain on good terms 
with a Germany which occasionally growled across the North 
Sea. At the same time, he took good care to keep Russia 
convinced that if Germany wished it, she could at any time have 
an alliance with England, and therefore he managed that the 
relations of Germany with England should remain at the stage 
of a vague irritation, and not take on such an aspect of irre^ 
mediable rupture as would naturally tempt Russia to seek in 
England an ally against Germany — the astonishing and almost 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 395 

shocking obsequiousness of British policy toward Germany mak- 
ing his task an easy one. So strongly were both States per- 
meated with this Bismarckian policy of a Russo-German under- 
standing that a dying Tsar and a dying Kaiser alike urged it 
upon their successors. Indeed, it appeared rooted in German 
policy, and when the Russian Foreign Minister once remarked 
to Bismarck that he had every confidence in him, but was he 
sure that his own position was secure, the Iron Chancellor re- 
plied indignantly that his Imperial master had perfect confi- 
dence in him, and that he would assuredly only lay down his 
office with his life. 

Such were the relations of Russia and Germany up to a 
short time after William II. ascended the throne. How sim- 
ply and suddenly he '' dropped the old pilot " in 1890 is well 
known. The dismissed and astounded Bismarck never forgave 
his Emperor, and the closing years of his life were deeply 
stained by an unparalleled series of malevolent interviews, in- 
spired articles, and deliberate breaches of confidence, all in- 
tended to prove that Germany's policy had become anti-Rus- 
sian, and that nothing but disaster awaited the Fatherland in 
consequence. But William II. went on his way unmoved, and 
bit by bit his policy and his ambitions have been revealed to 
students of European affairs. They are original, daring, and 
gigantic. Moreover, he has, up to the present, succeeded at 
every step. But the crucial time has not yet come. When it 
does come, he will possibly be found to have been aiming at 
nothing less than a transformation of the map of Europe, and 
an extension of the German Imperial sphere, in comparison 
with which the annexation of Elsass and Lothringen was, from 
the standpoint of national economics, but like adding a potato- 
patch to a dukedom. 

I do not mean that after he had dismissed Bismarck the 
Kaiser adopted a frankly anti-Russian policy. That would have 
been as contrary to his own diplomatic methods as it would 



396 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

have been distasteful to his people and dangerous to the security 
of his Empire. On the contrary, he endeavoured to combine all 
the advantages of a good understanding with Russia, v^ith the 
advantage also to be found in complete freedom of political 
action. " The incessant movement of his imagination," as an 
anonymous writer has recently said, '' presents him in turn with 
equally persuasive pictures of incompatible designs." But 
Alexander III. was no lover of Germany and the Germans, as 
Alexander II. had been; moreover, he was a convinced Pan- 
slavist, and Panslavism and hatred of Germany are at the end 
of the same road. Therefore the Kaiser set himself, with such 
a Tsar in Russia, an impossible task. No doubt it was in large 
part to secure closer relations with Russia that he took the 
very strong step of throwing aside all his previous sympathy 
with Japan, and joining Russia and France in forcing her to give 
up a large part of the fruits of her victorious war with China. 
This step involved many fateful consequences, several of which 
are still to come. It involved the seizure of Kiao-chao and Port 
Arthur, and the cession of Wei-hai-wei; the virtual annexation 
of Manchuria by Russia; th^ change of route of the Great Si- 
berian Railway; and, indeed, it may fairly be said to have been 
the cause, even if indirectly, of the Boxer rising and all that 
came in its train. Moreover, it has left Russia and Japan face 
to face under conditions in which war is only too possible an 
outcome. 

Naturally Russia was much gratified by the Emperor 
William's course, but her gratitude, probably to his lively dis- 
appointment, took no material form. He thereupon proceeded 
to help himself to advantages in the Far East which he had 
failed to secure by the good-will of his temporary ally. With 
the murder of some German missionaries as a pretext, he boldly 
seized upon Kiao-chao and announced that Shan-tung was a 
German sphere of interest. The Foreign Of^ces of Europe 
were led to believe that Russia was a consenting party to this 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 397 

course, and consequently they failed to unite in the protest 
which would assuredly have been made if they ihad known that 
Germany was taking isolated action. This incident strained 
Russo-German relations very severely, as (to depart for a mo- 
ment from chronological order) did the precisely similar strata- 
gem by which the command of the international forces in 
China was secured for Count von Waldersee. On this occa- 
sion, too, Europe was given to understand that Russia's con- 
sent had been obtained — indeed, that the suggestion of the 
German Field-Marshal had originated with her. The German 
version was specifically repudiated later in a Russian official 
document, and the circumstances are believed to have been the 
subject of a private and personal explanation by the Kaiser to 
the Tsar. 

From all these events — to say nothing of the two visits 
of the Emperor William to England and his enthusiastic recep- 
tion there — it will be clear that the relations between Russia 
and Germany must now be widely different from what they 
were in Bismarckian days. And to complete the picture so 
far, must be added the conviction in St. Petersburg that Ger- 
many is about to impose an increased duty upon the import 
of Russian cereals. If this be done, Russia has already bluntly 
declared that she will retaliate — a tariff war. 

In the foregoing, however, we have ihardly yet touched upon 
the real and fundamental causes which are moulding the rela- 
tions of Russia and Germany to-day. These are not isolated 
incidents or personal encounters, but new springs of national 
policy, new drifts of racial development. The fact — as Russia 
sees it — is that Germany has deliberately placed herself athwart 
Russian policy in each one of the three paths along which Rus- 
sian statesmen desire that their country should enjoy an un- 
impeded progress. These three paths lie in the Far East, the 
Near East, and toward the Persian Gulf. Here, then, we at 
last touch the danger-zone of contemporary European politics, 



398 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

and the most important factor in the future of the Russian 
Empire. 

I have already spoken of a German action, vis a vis Russia, 
in the Far East. It may be summed up as a claim to share 
a position which Russia has regarded as predestined to be hers 
alone. Germany has come into North China; she has estab- 
lished a naval base there and appropriated a province; she 
secured — by sharp practice, as Russia thinks — the conspicuous 
leadership of the European nations; she has concluded with 
England an open Convention which, in spite of assurances to 
the contrary, means that under certain circumstances, she is 
pledged to join in opposition to Russian designs; she now 
maintains a considerable naval force in Far Eastern waters; 
she has, in a word, given Russia clearly to understand that any 
further extension of Russian power in China must either 
" square " Germany or overcome her opposition, and this is a 
new, a serious, and a wholly unexpected obstacle in the path 
of Russian poHcy. 

German activity in the Near East is a much darker cloud 
still upon the Russian horizon. Events there have moved for 
a long time precisely as Russia has desired, and her desires there 
are deeply rooted in the aspirations and confident hopes of her 
people. Turkey has slowly but steadily decayed. The Rus- 
sian Ambassador at Constantinople has been the power behind 
the throne. Step by step Bulgaria, which, under the ferocious 
patriotism of Stambolof, barred the Russian advance in the 
Balkans, has been brought back under Muscovite influence. 
Stambolof's strong and busy hands, chopped off in front of his 
own house, are preserved by his wife in a bottle of spirits; his 
murderers, well-known to everybody, have never been punished; 
little Prince Boris was baptised into the Greek Church; Russia 
has lent Bulgaria money, and has once more sent her ofificers 
to the Bulgarian army; Prince Ferdinand has been permitted 
to entertain a Russian Grand Duke in a Bulgarian port, and 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 399 

the next steps will be his reception by the Tsar in St. Peters- 
burg, his remarriage with a Russian or pro-Russian princess, 
and the elevation of Bulgaria into a kingdom. 

All this has come about precisely as Russia desired. So, 
too, with Servia, hitherto jealously dominated by Austria. The 
King and Queen of Servia are about to visit the Tsar and 
Tsaritsa, and the Tsar was prepared to be godfather to the ex- 
pected but mythical heir. Panslavism is rejoicing, too, in the 
coming joint session of the Bulgarian and Servian parliaments, 
with its probable resolution of affection for Russia. Prince 
Nicholas of Montenegro remains the devoted friend of the 
Tsar, as he was of his father, and his influence is naturally 
much greater now that his daughter is Queen of Italy. 
Only Roumania preserves her diplomatic independence of Rus- 
sia, and indeed, has just concluded a military convention with 
Austria. With this single exception, the obstacles to a Rus- 
sian advance to Constantinople had gradually been removed, 
when suddenly it dawned upon an astonished Europe and an 
indignant Russia that the Kaiser's '' mailed fist " had obtruded 
itself into the way. During the Armenian massacres Germany, 
with calculated and placid indifference, declined to speak or 
act. The Turkish army was supplied from German factories 
with cannon and ammunition; when she took the field against 
Greece a German general drew up the plan of campaign; and 
the Turkish council of war at Elassona followed German advice 
day by day. (I was a prisoner in that camp for twelve hours 
shortly before the outbreak of war, so I am not speaking with- 
out some personal knowledge.) The Kaiser's brother-in-law, 
the Crown Prince of Greece, commanded the Greek army 
against the irresistible combination of Turkish troops and Ger- 
man tactics, while the Kaiser's sister wept bitterly over her 
brother's ruthless indifference toward her adopted country. For 
a while Germany contributed one second-rate warship to the 
blockade of Crete, and finally withdrew even that. The Kaiser 



400 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

has made a triumphal progress in Constantinople and in Asia 
Minor. Finally, the way being thus carefully made ready, Ger- 
many, with confident audacity and entire success, took the step 
for which all the rest had been but preparation, and openly 
thrust her line of policy not only across the ambitions of Russia 
but into the very kernel and heart of Russia's most cherished 
plan. I allude, of course, to the concession by the Sultan to a 
German company of the right to build a railway from the Bos- 
phorus to the Persian Gulf, via Baghdad, the momentous scheme 
I have already described in detail when writing of Russian rail- 
way expansion in Central Asia.* Russian of^cial resentment 
of what is regarded as a deliberate invasion of her own sphere, 
a project which can succeed only at the expense of her own 
most cherished ambition, is great, while the Russian press emits 
a most unusual note of pessimism. " The German invasion of 
Asiatic Turkey," says the Novoye Vremyay " goes steadily for- 
ward, always and undeviatingly forward, whilst Russia, unfort- 
unately, looks on as a silent and helpless spectator at the grad- 
ual destruction of her interests and the dissipation of her hopes 
in Asia Minor." And the Sviet is permitted to launch its tiny 
thunderbolt straight at the head of the Kaiser himself. '' Day 
after day," it declares, '' the Emperor William is dealing Russia 
blows severely felt." " The Persian Gulf," adds the Novostiy 
" is to be the question of the near future to the exclusion of all 
other world problems." So acrimonious is Russian criticism of 
everything German just now that the Novoye Vreinya, by far 
the most important paper in the Empire, recently declared it 
to be '' credibly alleged " that the German agents at Haidar 
Pasha of the Baghdad railway " fired the properties in order to 
clear a site for the company's railway station, depots, engine- 
sheds, etc., and with the further economic purpose of acquiring 
the land at a very low price ! " 

* See Chapter XVII., and for Russian expansion toward Persia the concluding part 
of Chapter XIV. 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 401 

To understand this indignation, it should be remembered 
that it springs not only from this serious direct issue, but also 
from the even more menacing underlying indirect issue. The 
former is the determination of Russia to secure at any cost the 
control of Persia and a naval and maritime outlet upon the Per- 
sian Gulf. Persia is perfectly helpless before her, s'he is virtu- 
ally mistress in Tehran, her plans for railway extension from 
the Caucasus (as shown upon my map) are being rapidly pushed 
forward, and she has surveyed the route for her own railway 
through Persia to the Gulf. This extension she regards as a 
matter of life and death — so much so that her leading news- 
paper recently declared that if England would consent to this, 
every other issue between the two countries could be settled 
amicably and at once. But the indirect and greater issue is the 
German Emperor's patronage and even protection of the Sul- 
tan of Turkey, of which this Baghdad railway concession is only 
one result. Russian diplomacy, usually so perspicuous, failed 
to foresee this. Turkey, since the Armenian massacres, was 
believed to have no powerful friend in Europe, and her gradual 
disintegration was counted as one of the factors of Russian for- 
eign policy. In fact, the Russian ambassador at Constantinople 
often appeared to act more like the Resident in a Protected 
State than the representative of one sovereign at the Court of 
another. The injury to Russian plans by the German blow was 
therefore the more galling because of the surprise with which 
this was struck.* 

* This aspect of the relations between Russia, Germany, and Turkey, is becoming 
the subject of frequent comment in the capitals of Europe. For instance, while writ- 
ing the above I read these two telegrams in The Times: — "There has been through- 
out Europe for some years past an uneasy feeling that, for political objects of her own, 
Germany has been in the habit of encouraging the Sultan to offer resistance to the just 
representations of the Powers to a degree which confronted them with the alternatives 
of being fooled or of seeming to endanger the peace of Europe by deserved measures 
of coercion." — Berlin correspondent, November ^th. 

" Russia looks upon the Sultan as naturally and of right dependent upon her. It 
is to her that he must look for support if he needs it. It is from her that he must 



4oa ALL THE RUSSIAS 

It will thus be seen that the relations of Russia with Ger- 
many are highly critical. If the Emperor William persists in 
the scheme he has so grandly conceived and, up to the present, 
pushed forward with extraordinary skill — and he is not the man 
to be frightened from his ardently desired goal — a rupture of 
the traditional relations between Berlin and St. Petersburg may 
not be far ofT.* I need not point out what an opportunity this 
situation affords to England, if she finds a statesman with in- 
sight and courage to take advantage of it. The more so, as 
she holds in her hands for the moment the key to the building 
of this Baghdad railway, which cannot receive its guarantee from 
the Sultan unless he is permitted to raise the Turkish tarifif.f 

dread punishment for any wrong which he may have committed. The attempts of the 
German Emperor to take the Sultan under his own immediate protection in exchange 
for commercial and financial concessions have throughout been regarded here with 
unconcealed indignation." — Sf. Petersburg correspondent, November gtk. 

* A significant feature in the foreign relations of Russia are the two purely strategical 
railways she is building toward the frontier of Galicia. One, intended to facilitate 
the concentration of troops from Southern Russia on the extreme south of Galicia, is 
obviously directed to the Balkans and Austria. The more remarkable one, however, 
farther north, is a military measure against either Austria or Germany — Indeed, one 
account declares that it is being constructed at the instance of the French General 
Staff as a condition of the last Russian loan in France ! It starts from Bologoye (to 
which a line comes from Kostroma), midway on the line from St. Petersburg to 
Moscow and runs via Ostashkof, Toropetz, Luki, Polotsk and Volkovisk, to Siedlce 
(Syedlets), close to the Russian frontier which is thrust between Prussia and Austria. 
The expropriation of the land for this line was ordered by an Imperial ukaz dated 
September 14, 1901, it is to be finished by next February, engineers and navvies are 
said to have been recalled from the surveys of the proposed Moscow-Kistin railway to 
work upon it, and eight thousand labourers from the depressed agricultural districts 
placed upon it at the expense of the Ministry of War. This railway, as I have said, 
is purely strategical, and this aspect of it is enormously emphasised by the fact that it 
terminates midway between and close to the two great fortresses of Brest-Litovsk and 
Novogeorgievsk (formerly Modlin, twenty miles from Warsaw), the most strongly for- 
tified portion of the Russian Empire, the site of the " Polish Quadrilateral." It is an 
inevitable conclusion that if Russia has suddenly decided that her immensely strong 
position hereabouts is not strong enough, she must be contemplating the possibility 
of immediate and dangerous tension with one or other of her two neighbours across 
this frontier. 

1 1 cannot help thinking there is some reason to fear that Lord Salisbury has 
recently concluded a secret convention of some kind with Germany. If so, nobody 
knows what is in it, and Englishmen can only hope that this concession to Germany 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 403 

With Austria, no less than with Germany, have Russia's rela- 
tions recently undergone a rapid and a vital change. For a 
number of years past peace has been guaranteed in the Balkans 
— the powder-magazine of Europe — by the common decision 
of St. Petersburg and Vienna that they would not allow it to 
be broken. Indeed it was preposterous that these semi-civilised 
little States, sizzling with ill-digested ambition, ignorant, reck- 
less, ceaselessly intriguing, should be able at any moment to 
precipitate a situation in which two mighty empires might find 
themselves irresistibly dragged into a colossal and ruinous war. 
Therefore Russia and Austria, having decided that this should 
not be, proceeded to communicate their decision to Servia and 
Bulgaria in terms that left no room for misunderstanding, and 
Europe breathed freely. It was tacitly understood that Austria 
would not interfere in Bulgaria, while Russia recognised that 
Servia must be more or less under Austrian influence. 

It will be remembered that the freedom of Bulgaria was 
the result of the Russo-Turkish War, and that Servia was saved 
from Bulgaria during the war between the two by the appear- 
ance of Graf von Khevenhiiller, Austrian Consul-General at 
Belgrad, at the Bulgarian outposts beyond Pirot, announcing 
to Prince Alexander that if he advanced farther he would find 
not Servian but Austrian bayonets in his front. Thus each of 
the two Great Powers had a kind of prescriptive right to exer- 
cise influence over one of the two little Balkan States. 

Roumania did not come under this arrangement, for though 
she fought with Russia against Turkey, and, indeed, according 
to Moltke, saved the Russian army from the loss of the results 
of one whole campaign, she was alienated by her treatment by 
Russia at the close of the war, and she has been virtually a mem- 
ber of the Triple Alliance for a good many years. Roumania 

— with another to be mentioned in connection with Austria — is not part of the price 
they will have to pay for the Kaiser's conspicuous and unwavering neutrality during 
the war in South Africa. The " honest broker " does not usually work for nothing. 



404 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

is the most civilised and the most powerful of the Balkan coun- 
tries, and so far from Russia having gained influence there, the 
only result of the growth of Russian influence in the Balkans 
is that Roumania has just concluded a new military convention 
■ — or, more probably, confirmed an old one — with Austria. So 
significant is this last act, that the Reichswehr, the semi-ofHcial 
journal of the Austro-Hungarian army, has published the fol- 
lowing remarkable comments : 

** It is only in case a Balkan situation were created which 
would be directed against Austria and Roumania, as also Greece, 
which is afifiliated to the latter country, that what is now de- 
scribed as the Austro-Roumanian Military Convention, which, 
perhaps, exists on paper, would acquire practical significance. 
At the present juncture it is certainly a suspicious circumstance 
that Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenegro should make such ex- 
travagant efforts to manifest their devotion to Russia. It is, for 
the moment, impossible to say how far this policy of flattery 
will prove successful; but it is conceivable that under Pan- 
slavist influence it may one day lead to a regrettable disturbance 
of Austro-Russian relations." 

But gradually, as Russia has resumed her old paramountcy 
in Bulgaria, which Stambolof destroyed, this Austro-Russian 
understanding has worn thin, and Russia has begun to trench 
upon Austria's sphere in Servia. The Tsar's wedding-present 
to Queen Draga will be remembered, and I have mentioned his 
intention to be god-father to the heir who never appeared. The 
late King Milan had a personal feud with Prince Nicholas of 
Montenegro, the fine old mountain-fighter who belongs, body 
and soul, to Russia, but King Alexander has just withdrawn his 
military attache from Vienna to send him to Cettigne, the little 
Montenegrin capital. In fact, the Russian press now uses lan- 
guage on this subject which a few years ago would have caused 
the immediate suppression of the newspaper printing it. A 
leading St. Petersburg journal of Panslavist views, for instance, 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 405 

speaks of the meeting of the Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailo- 
vich and Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria as " the canonisation of 
Russia's eternal and fraternal friendship with her loyal kindred 
of the Balkan States " (note the plural), and adds that Russia 
has now addressed herself to the task of eliminating most thor- 
oughly '' the baneful Hapsburg incubus," not only from the in- 
dependent Balkan States, but even from the peoples w^hich still 
'* languish under the oppressive sway " of Austro-Hungary. 
Frankness could go no farther, unless it be in this precise sum- 
mary of the Balkan situation published in the Sviet: " The 
present grouping of the Powers — that is to say, the union of 
Russia, Servia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and France in one idea 
— affords ample protection against the union of Austria-Hun- 
gary, Germany, Roumania, and Greece. Russia must keep 
watch on the whole of Slavdom, and cannot allow it to be either 
wholly or partly Germanized or Magyarized." 

Rumours of wars form such a large part of the atmosphere 
of the Balkan Peninsula that it is never wise to attach much 
importance to them there, but beyond question there is at the 
present moment a stronger feeling of alarm among serious 
observers than has existed for many years, and this is caused 
not so much by an obvious weakening of the Austro-Russian 
agreement as by the actual events which have ensued. Rus- 
sia has increased her troops along the Pruth — river of fateful 
memory — and in other places and ways, including a curious dis- 
play of her naval power along the Black Sea coast and on the 
lower Danube, has shown an activity which is dif^cult to recon- 
cile with a desire to maintain the status quo. And the Austrian 
press draws pointed attention to the frequent meetings of Gen- 
eral Larovary, the Roumanian Commander in Chief, and Baron 
von Beck, chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Stafif. Prob- 
ably neither on one side nor the other is there anything more 
than the development of ordinary military preparations, but even 
these, amid so many explosive elements as the Balkans contain, 



4o6 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

are causing a new and distinct uneasiness and putting a certain 
strain upon the relations of Russia and Austria. 

There is, however, one other impending question, rarely men- 
tioned yet in current comment, which may affect — and at any 
moment — the relations of these two nations. I allude to the 
situation which will arise upon the death of the aged Austrian 
Emperor and the consequent action that Germany may take. 
We enter here upon the region of political speculation, though 
not without several definite and striking utterances to guide us. 
The Austrian Empire is of course a congeries of States of widely 
differing origins and language, for the most part on bad terms 
with one another, only held together by the purely political and 
accidental bond of the Hapsburg Crown and, to an even greater 
degree, by the personaHty of the Emperor Franz Josef. Even 
Hungary, which is politically a separate Kingdom, having its 
own King crowned in Buda, and only sharing its foreign affairs, 
customs, and army with Austria, cannot agree with the latter 
over the periodical Ausgleich. As for the other races of the 
Dual Empire — Germans, Czechs (Bohemian Slavs), Poles, Ru- 
thenians, Serbs, Croats and the rest, all hope of peace among 
them is now virtually abandoned. Every kind of concession and 
coercion has been applied in turn, but the abominable scenes 
of disorder in the Parliament at Vienna are a reflection of what 
exists throughout the land. Austria is in a state of general ill- 
veiled rebellion. The next and only remaining step will be the 
suppression by the Crown of representative institutions, fol- 
lowed by absolute government. 

Now the great racial struggle is in Bohemia, between two 
million Germans and four million Czechs. Other warring in- 
terests are comparatively unimportant. The Czechs are of 
course backed by their fellow Slavs in the Empire, and the Ger- 
mans by Vienna, with its almost exclusively Hebrew and ex- 
tremely influential capitalist ring. Between Czechs and Ger- 



I 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 407 

mans nothing less than a deadly hatred prevails, and both are 
disloyal to Austria. 

Each of the rivals, it must next be observed, is included in 
a great politico-racial movement outside its own country. Rus- 
sian Panslavism of course includes the Czechs, though they do 
not altogether reciprocate the feeling, as Panslavism carries with 
it the doctrines of the Russian Greek Church, and the Czechs 
are by no means all orthodox. But they are infinitely nearer to 
this than to German Lutheranism. What, now, is the corre- 
sponding movement which includes the Germans? A precisely 
similar, though not nearly so well known aspiration, called Pan- 
Germanism, already wide-spread and deeply-rooted both in 
Germany and Austria. It has its great leaders, its organisation, 
its newspapers, its famous atlas, its flag; and unless many signs 
fail, it possesses the sympathy and enjoys the support of no less 
a power than the Kaiser himself. Its racial object is simple: 
Germany to include all German-speaking countries. Its polit- 
ical objects are equally simple and strikingly concrete. Sir 
Rowland Blennerhassett describes them as follows : " This party 
now openly desires the break-up of the Austrian Empire, the 
annexation of all the German portions of Austria by Germany, 
and the extension of the German Empire to the Adriatic." And 
another well-informed writer upon this topic, Mr. W. B. Duf- 
field, says : " The successful prosecution of German ambition 
means that Trieste is to be a German port, and the Adriatic a 
German lake," and with this " the imposition of a universal 
monarchy in German lands." And the latter truly remarks that 
it is impossible to read these words which the Kaiser spoke 
at Bonn on April 24th in any but a Pan-German sense : " Why 
did the old Empire come to naught? Because the old Empire 
was not founded on a strong national basis. The universal idea 
of the old Roman Kingdom did not allow the German nation 
developments in a German national sense. The essential of the 
nation is a demarcation outwardly corresponding to the personality 



4o8 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

of a people and its racial peculiarity J' One must be stupider 
even than Heine said the Germans of his day were, to misun- 
derstand such a plain hint as this, and, indeed, the heir to the 
throne of Austria-Hungary, the Ardhduke Ferdinand, under- 
stood it well enough, for he retorted in a speech which startled 
Europe, calling upon the Roman Catholic forces of the Em- 
pire to rally to its defence. For this racial and political strug- 
gle involves a religious conflict also. The Pan-German propa- 
ganda is evangelical, and one of its wings is the Los von Rom 
— " Cut loose from Rome ! " — movement, directed against the 
Catholicism of the House of Hapsburg and its adherents, and 
the great majority of tlhe Czechs. Dr. Engel, one of the Czech 
leaders, characterised this movement by the remark that as Ger- 
many has no use for Austrian Catholics she is trying to convert 
Austria to Protestantism, and Dr. Lueger, the famous Anti- 
Semite burgomaster of Vienna, declares that by proselytism it 
is intended to facilitate the absorption of Austria by the Ger- 
man Empire. 

This politico-religious propaganda is carried on in Germany 
with a frankness almost amounting to effrontery, for in the 
Grand Duchy of Saxe- Weimar a house-to-house collection for 
the Los von Rom movement has been permitted, and at the 
recent General Assembly of the Evangelical Alliance held at 
Breslau a resolution was passed beginning as follows : " The 
fourteenth General Assembly of the Evangelical Alliance ex- 
presses its grateful satisfaction at the blessed progress of the 
evangelical movement in Austria " ! It is not surprising that 
the heir to the throne of Austria, the strongest remaining royal 
support of the Papacy, should sound a call to arms in face of 
such an attack, from beyond the frontier, on both the dynasty 
and the official faith of his country. - ' -,— . 

If the ambition of Germany has really assumed these gigan- 
tic proportions, the situation in which it must seek realisation 
may arise at the death of a monarch now aged seventy-one. It 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 409 

is therefore impossible to exaggerate the seriousness of the pros- 
pect, or indeed the extreme deHcacy and danger of the inter- 
national complication that would be thus produced. Russia 
is not prepared, either from a purely military or from a financial 
point of view, to fight Germany; but such considerations have 
never kept her back yet, and it may reasonably be doubted 
whether she would not plunge the whole Balkan Peninsula into 
war, and perhaps even the whole of Europe, rather than see her 
mightiest military neighbour so vastly aggrandised in territory, 
in population, in wealth, and in sea-power. At any rate, we 
see here Panslavism claiming the Austrian Czechs, and Pan- 
Germanism claiming the Austrian Germans, and this definite 
rivalry already constitutes one of the most momentous and puz- 
zling factors in the relations of Russia with the nations. 



Two other countries may be more briefly mentioned in con- 
nection with Russia. There has been for long in the United 
States a belief that Russia is a genuine, sympathetic friend, 
moved by admiration for the American people and their in- 
stitutions. This has grown up chiefly, I suppose, from the 
apocryphal narratives of the readiness of Russia to intervene on 
the side of right during the war of the Rebellion. Therefore 
the American people have frequently made public profession of 
their friendship for Russia, which Russia, needless to say, has 
cordially accepted, for who would refuse such a gift? But the 
whole belief is a political soap-bubble. It is nothing but a 
bright film in the ether. Russia likes to appear a friend of the 
United States, because the effect of that is to postpone any 
co-operation of England and America in world affairs — a 
contingency which Russia is not the only Power to fear. But 
beyond this^ she seldom thinks of the United States, except 
to admire and envy its vast prosperity; among the official and 
reactionary class, to regard its institutions with profound dis- 



410 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

approval; to anticipate the time when enough cotton will be 
grown in Turkestan to make it safe for iher to put a prohibitive 
tax upon every American bale; or to wish that the American 
billionaires would invest a few spare millions in government 
guaranteed 4 per cent, bonds of Russian railways — and, let 
me add, if I were a billionaire I should meet the Russian wish 
in this respect, for there is no better investment at such an in- 
terest in Europe. Beyond these things, America does not exist 
for Russia, except when a troublesome Secretary of State puts 
a series of direct questions about Manchuria or the Open Door, 
and insists upon answers in writing. In fact, Russia, with no 
ill-will at all, thinks about America precisely what a great re- 
ligious autocracy must think about a huge secular democracy 
four thousand miles away. The rest is mere flag-wagging, and 
for my own part, when I see an American newspaper lauding 
Russian love for the United States, I cannot help asking my- 
self, knowing what I know, why that particular newspaper goes 
out of its way to disseminate that particular view. 

About Japan, on the contrary, Russia thinks night and day. 
When, with the help of France and Germany, she had uncere- 
moniously kicked Japan out of Port Arthur and off the main- 
land of China, Russia probably thought that she had done with 
the little island-Empire for a long time. But Japan thought 
otherwise, and proceeded to lay out a programme of naval and 
military expansion due to mature a short time before the Trans- 
Siberian Railway was to be completed. Many things have 
conspired to hinder the progress of the great railway, but Japan's 
military and naval schemes have gone steadily onward, in spite 
of all financial difificulties. To-day she has a magnificent navy, 
including some of the most powerful battle-ships afloat, stronger 
than any fleet Russia could safely send to^ the Far East, while 
her army is at least equal in numbers, and superior in equip- 
ment and scientific training to the land forces Russia could 
muster on the Eastern side of her vast dominions. And be- 



RUSSIA AND THE NATIONS 411 

tween the two nations there lies Korea — a territorial deadlock, 
a political antinomy. Russia cannot allow Japan to have it, for 
that would give her Eastern border a land frontier to a mili- 
tary Power. Japan cannot allow Russia to have it, for that would 
leave her island-home almost within gunshot of the troops and 
the naval bases of the Colossus of the North, and deprive her 
of an outlet for her overflowing population. At present Japan 
is gaining, for her influence and her people and her trade are 
increasing in Korea every day. 

Russia has not failed to propose a division of interests to 
Japan. The latter was assured that war with Russia meant ruin, 
whereas an understanding meant a long era of tranquillity. 
Japan, it was proposed, should have a free hand in Korea, and 
in return should undertake not to impede Russia in Manchuria. 
But Russia must have a naval base on the south coast of Korea, 
as a half-way house between Vladivostok and Port Arthur. 
With striking unanimity the Japanese press has declined these 
semi-ofBcial overtures. In the first place, they say, Korea does 
not belong to Russia to give away; on the contrary, other 
Powers are interested in the Far East, and Japan and Russia 
have a treaty guarding each of them against the aggression of 
the other in that country. And a Russian naval base in Japanese 
waters is precisely what Japan most strenuously objects to. 
Finally, Japan does not wish Manchuria to be closed to trade, 
and does not herself desire to annex Korea, being quite satis- 
fied with its present status and her own position there.* And 
as if to clinch this last argument, comes the news that Korea 
has ceded to Japan, for a special settlement, 650 acres, formerly 
surveyed and pegged out by a Russian warship, at Cha-pok-pho, 
near Ma-sam-pho, to be policed by Japan. 

It is a very delicate situation, and Russia would give a good 
deal for a diplomatic escape from this naval and military anxiety. 

* See an interesting letter from the well-known Tokyo correspondent of The 
Times, November 8, 1901. 



412 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

Her view of it is shown by the fact that the best part of her 
navy is in the Far East. Japan, too, would be thankful to be 
relieved from the financial burden thus imposed upon her. But 
the question of the closing of Manchuria to non-Russian trade, 
with all its consequences, blocks the way, more even than that 
of the status of Korea. Russia is unlikely to forego this, and 
Japan will not forego her freedom to join any international 
action that may ultimately be taken — indeed she will not do 
anything which would prevent her from taking single-handed 
action, if her fate should so cast the die. 

Such, then, in necessarily brief outline and with one excep- 
tion, are the relations of Russia as a great whole, with the 
diiiferent nations surrounding her, upon whose attitudes and 
actions her future must in large part depend. It will have been 
seen that the problems awaiting her — perhaps close at hand — 
are neither few nor simple, but that they will demand all her 
judgment, all her diplomacy, all her prestige, and possibly all 
her resources, to solve them to her advantage, while some of 
them are so bound up with her national security and well-being 
that a mistake in handling them might throw her back for 
generations. The exception is, of course, the future course of 
events between Russia and the British Empire, and this, with 
certain broad conclusions about Russia which must affect it, is 
naturally the subject of my concluding chapter. 



CHAPTER XXV 
RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 

THERE remains the last and greatest of Russia's foreign 
relationships. England — what of this long-existent and 
traditional rivalry? Is not mutual enmity rooted in the hearts 
of both peoples? Do not their statesmen take this nightmare 
of predestined war to bed with them every night, and wake 
every morning to find it wide-eyed upon their pillows? Has 
not a library of books been written in both languages to show 
to demonstration that Briton and Muscovite must inevitably 
come to the death-grip? In fact, are not England and Russia, 
by the eternal nature of things — 

Like rival thunders from opposed poles, 
Rushing toward the shock that splits the world ? 

I have long held and advocated a contrary opinion, and 
now that I have seen much more of Russia that opinion has 
been confirmed almost to the point of certainty. I am pro- 
foundly convinced that a good and lasting understanding be- 
tween the two nations is not only desirable above all things, 
but also well within the range of possibility. When Lord Rose- 
berry's government was defeated seven years ago this entente 
was virtually in sight. " Nous sommes a la veille du partage," 
said a great Russian statesman-soldier in office to an English 
official friend of mine with whom he was discussing the situa- 
tion. Moreover, notwithstanding that the latest books on the 
subject are violently anti-Russian, the number of people shar- 
ing this opinion has largely increased, and if our statesmen 

413 



414 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

had been stronger (and younger) men, we should ere this have 
been on the road to an understanding, for Lord Salisbury has 
confessed that the anti-Russian, pro-Turkish policy of Lord 
Beaconsfield was "putting our money on the wrong horse;" 
and Mr. Balfour has pointedly remarked that '' Asia is big 
enough for both." Their words flew up, but their thoughts 
remained below, and officially we are as suspicious of Russia as 
ever, and Russia is equally disgusted with our unformed, incal- 
culable, spasmodic policy. Therefore she goes calmly ahead^ 
doing what she pleases, taking what she wants, knowing that 
in all probability when England alone desires or opposes any- 
thing, a few acid despatches and a little calling of names in 
Parliament will be the worst she has to fear. In diplomacy 
Russia plays a strong game, and plays it sometimes without 
scruples; but she both respects and likes an opponent who 
plays his own game strongly too, and she does not demand in 
others a higher standard of scrupulousness than she follows her- 
self. Before I had set foot in European Russia my conviction 
rested upon examination of the various divergent and conver- 
gent interests of the two countries; to-day it rests also upon 
positive knowledge that the ablest and most powerful states- 
men of Russia would welcome a definite and far-reaching recon- 
ciliation and adjustment, if they could be convinced of British 
sincerity and consistency. Anybody, moreover, who knows 
what the Novoye Vremya is will see what a change has come 
over Russian opinion when that journal publishes a series of 
lengthy articles from the pen of M. Siromyatnikof, a much- 
respected publicist, advocating an Anglo-Russian agreement 
and warning his fellow-countrymen against the " costly assist- 
ance of the ^ honest brokers' in Berlin." At any rate, the 
greatest personal forces in Russia are on the side of such a 
policy, upon the condition I have mentioned above. I assert 
this as a fact within my own knowledge. 

There are only three parts of the world where serious ob- 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 415 

stacks are held to exist — China, India, and Persia, and each 
of these calls for distinct consideration. In China, Russia has 
virtually got what she wants, namely, the control of Manchuria 
and a free rail-route to a fortified harbour upon the open sea. 
The Manchurian Convention is not yet signed, but it certainly 
will be in some form or other, though Russia has lost her friend 
at court by the death of Li Hung-chang, who was a paid Rus- 
sian agent and who, in the negotiations for the settlement, was 
acting all the time in the interest of Russia. He served her 
well — as he had often done before, and as Gordon long ago 
foretold that he would.* The manufacturing nations of the 
world will have made a grave mistake if they permit Russia to 
close Manchuria to non-Russian trade, as they will discover in 
time. So little do they care for their own commercial interests, 
and indeed their own prestige, that even now Russia still main- 
tains her military seizure of the international custom-house 
(for it is that, though nominally Chinese) at the only Man- 
churian sea-port. Common representations by Great Britain, 
the United States, and Japan could at one time without diffi- 
culty have saved for the world the trade of Manchuria, but 
the opportunity appears to have slipped by, though Japan is 
still unreconciled to the fact, whatever shape the settlement 
between Russia and China may take, and though negotia- 
tions are still proceeding on the subject. Of the conduct of 
British policy in the Chinese question during the past five 
years I can hardly trust myself to speak: I believe that the 
historian of the next generation will regard it as the grossest 
neglect of the national interests within his knowledge. But 
to all appearances the evil is done: Russia virtually has Man- 
churia, and also Mongolia, with its enormously valuable gold- 
mines, now being privately exploited by a semi-official Rus- 
sian group. Russia being thus palpably replete in China, there 
should be no great dif^culty in persuading her to admit the 

* See The People and Politics of the Far East, p. 246. 



4i6 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

fact. The losers in the game may perhaps find some conso- 
lation in the reflection that Russia — as some of her statesmen 
keenly realise — has undertaken a responsibility the end of which 
is not yet. The " yellow peril " exists in truth for her, with 
thousands of miles of frontier coterminous with China, and 
to be colonised by scattered settlements of Russian peasants 
hardly superior in civilisation to the Chinese, with whom they 
may well develop relationships far more intimate than will be 
pleasing to their rulers. And China has profited in military 
matters from her late experience; she has by no means lost 
prestige in her own eyes — rather the reverse; she is arming 
with speed and with knowledge; and Russia, with its sources 
of human and material supply on the other side of the world, 
is her neighbour. If one were looking for a motto for Rus- 
sia's triumphal relations to two Chinese provinces, I am not 
sure that it would not be, Hahes tota quod mente petisti, infelix. 



I turn to India, where most people believe that the real 
strain and danger between the British and Russian Empires 
lie. The intention of Russia to invade India has been for gen- 
erations an accepted commonplace, due probably most of all to 
the idea expressed in Sir Henry Rawlinson's remark that " any 
one who traces the movements of Russia toward India on the 
map of Asia cannot fail to be struck with the resemblance which 
these movements bear to the operations of an army opening 
parallels against a beleaguered fortress." This is very true, but 
it must be remembered, first, that some of these movements 
date back a considerable time, when the situation of Russia in 
world-politics was very different from what it is to-day; sec- 
ond, that in many of these movements commercial develop- 
ment was beyond question the chief, if not the sole, aim — an 
aim which, be it added, results have abundantly justified; and 
third, that others of these movements have been forced upon 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 417 

Russia by the necessity of keeping order beyond her borders 
— a natural and inevitable process to which much of the ex- 
pansion of the British Empire has also been due. 

This question of Russia's intentions with regard to India 
has been present to my mind in every conversation I have ever 
held with a Russian whose opinion was worth hearing. I have 
endeavoured to study every fact bearing upon it, and after long 
consideration I have come to the conclusion that the colossal 
and perilous undertaking of an armed invasion of India, with 
a view to conquest, is not part of the plan of any really respon- 
sible Russian, either statesman or soldier. Of course a great 
many Russians, nearly all their newspapers, and a large ma- 
jority of Russian officers, believe not only that Russia intends 
to do this, but that she will. In Russia, however, public opin- 
ion and newspapers count for very little, and ninety-nine per 
cent, of officers not at all, so far as national policy is concerned. 
It would be roughly true to say that every Russian officer up 
to the rank of colonel beHeves firmly that the invasion of India 
is possible, probable, and desirable, while everyone above the 
rank of colonel has learned that as a military operation it is 
practically impossible, and that as a political move it would be 
the climax of folly. In Central Asia almost every Russian 
knows to a month or two when he will get his marching orders 
for Kabul — the time is generally close at hand; in St. Peters- 
burg the very few men who really influence the course of Rus- 
sian affairs will not waste their scanty leisure in discussing the 
question with you — they sincerely regard you as quite an out- 
sider, diplomatically speaking, if you desire to raise it. I have 
talked with some of these really responsible men, and I sin- 
cerely believe the most influential of all would not have India 
at a gift. Above them all, too, is the Tsar, compared with 
whose decision little else matters, and his Majesty is a man of 
peace, not only from the deep conviction that Russia, like other 
countries, needs the sunshine of peace for her own growth, but 



4i8 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

also from the highest moral and humanitarian motives. Upon 
this point there are not two opinions among those in a posi- 
tion to know. Moreover, if Russia had desired to make a move 
toward India why has she remained inactive during two years 
of perfect opportunity? We have had no army in England; 
our army in Africa could not spare a man; our army in India, 
though more seasoned and better trained owing to its pro- 
longed absence from home, has not been at its normal peace 
strength; the entire Continent has been raging and imagining 
vain things against us; we were without an ally in the world; 
the death of the Amir of Afghanistan made everything in that 
country uncertain for a moment; never was there — never can 
there again be — such a chance for an unscrupulous enemy to 
strike at us by land. And in spite of all the warring naval 
schools we cannot defend the Northwest frontier by sea. Yet 
Russia has not shown the slightest desire to take advantage of 
our embarrassment or our defeats, and it is certain that her 
commercial crisis would not have kept her back if she thought 
her national policy demanded action. I venture to say that 
the Emperor of Russia and his principal advisers have by their 
attitude since October, 1899, given England a striking and 
unequivocal proof of the absence of any hostile intention, if 
not of the presence of positive friendliness. I should be happy 
if I could point to any similar evidence of British consideration 
for Russia. 

The truth is, in my opinion, that Russia regards her posi- 
tion on the Indian frontier as a lever to bring pressure to bear, 
whenever necessary, upon England in other matters. If the re- 
lations between the two countries grow strained beyond a cer- 
tain point, you hear of troops from the Caucasus crossing the 
Caspian; if the situation gets worse, you learn the precise num- 
ber of troops of all arms gathered at Kushkinski Post on the 
Afghan frontier; if a serious rupture occur, or were about to 
occur, I should expect the Russians to seize Herat, which they 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 419 

could do without much difficulty.* Then there would be peace, 
or war all round. I have no doubt Russia is ready enough to 
use the powerful leverage conferred by her position on the 
Afghan frontier, and she would be fooHsh, in her own interest, 
not to do so.f But the notion of invading India to annex and 
administer it does not seriously exist in Russia. 

It would, from any point of view, including the merely 
technical one of men and transports, be far beyond Russia's 
means, considering the vast tasks she has undertaken and the 
vast aims she cherishes in other parts of the world. Finally, 
this must be considered. India no longer looms in Russia's 
eyes as the El Dorado of the world; she sees plainly the prob- 
lems of finance and population that are assuming such grave 
dimensions there; she observes the almost mechanical recru- 
descence of famine; she realises what the strain of adminis- 
tering India is likely to be for England in years to come; she 
has not the least desire to add that burden to the many she 
already has to bear. 

Therefore I hold that India offers no insurmountable or 
even serious obstacle to a solid and friendly understanding be- 
tween England and Russia, covering all points where their 
national interests appear now to be at variance. 

* On the other hand, a friend possessing unusual sources of military information 
assures me that the Afghans could delay the Russian seizure of Herat for a consider- 
able time — for as long, he believes, as it would take an Indian force to reach there, 
if the Afghans desired us to assist them in that part. The late Amir, he adds, had 
a force in and near Herat of 22,000 men, with modern armament, especially in guns. 

f When I returned from Central Asia during the South African war I was assured 
in official military circles in London that large bodies of Russian troops had been con- 
veyed across the Caspian Sea or forwarded by railway to the frontier. In reply I 
informed them that I myself had been travelling up and down the line between the 
Caspian and Merv during those very weeks, talking freely with all sorts of people, 
and had not seen or heard of a single man being moved — except one shipload of re- 
cruits always sent at that time of year, very raw and very sea-sick. The canard does 
not nest in newspaper offices alone. 

Readers of Colonel C. E. Yate's Khurasan and Sistan will remember that a high 
Russian officer (since stated by Major Yate to have been a Minister of State) said to 
him of the Merv-Kushk railway, "We are building it to protect our interests in 
China and the Bosphorus." 



420 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

There remains Persia, and here the question is one of much 
difficulty and perplexity, involving several issues of the greatest 
importance and range. Moreover, unHke those of China and 
India, it is one with which English readers are not yet familiar. 
It must therefore be considered in some detail. 

Russia desires to become mistress of Persia, and to possess 
an outlet upon the Persian Gulf, and she is determined to use 
all her strength to carry out her desire. That is the postulate. 
She has nowhere, so far as I know, set forth in detail either the 
ground or the justification of this desire. I have already de- 
scribed some of her reasons at length — in fact, I believe I have 
stated her case, as regards one aspect of it, more fully than she 
has ever stated it herself. Her writers usually confine them- 
selves to asseverating the fact, adducing no better arguments 
than " historic aim," " national necessity," or '' inevitable ex- 
pansion." When they descend to detail they are often on very 
unsafe ground. The latest of them merely remarks that " Rus- 
sia .. . must be the predominant Power when her political 
security and vital interests are involved." * It is needless to 
point out that England could make out a better case upon 
these two grounds for her predominance in the Persian Gulf. 
The St. Petersburg Bourse Gazette, understood to express the 
views of M. de Witte himself, contained a typical Russian state- 
ment of claim two months ago, as follows : 

The final decision rests neither with England nor Germany nor with Turkey, 
which reckons upon the support of the latter Power, but with Russia, whose 
merchant navy is now in regular communication with the ports of the Persian 
Gulf. It was not in order to secure for the British Fleet this important strategic 
point on the shore of the Persian Gulf that Russia has latterly devoted immense 
capital to the economic revival of Persia and that Russian diplomacy has done 
so much to emancipate western Persia from British servitude. Inasmuch as 
Russia's diplomacy roused her neighbour Persia to a new existence and strength- 
ened the moral and economic link between that country and Russia, it put an 
end once for all to the idle talk about dividing Persia into a northern sphere of 

* "A Russian Diplomatist," National Review, January, 1902, p. 687. 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 421 

influence belonging to Russia and a southern sphere of influence belonging to 
England. There can be no division of spheres of influence. Persia, together 
with the waters that bathe its shores, must remain the object of Russian mate- 
rial and moral protection. 

This magniloquent allusion to the fiasco of the Kornilof and to 
" British servitude " is, it must be confessed, rather poor stuff, 
but it is the best we get. Therefore, as Russia does not state 
her case, we must state it for her. 

Russia's desire for Persia, besides the possession of the future 
railway route to the East which I have previously described, 
is part of her general and vague, but perfectly estabUshed, 
movement toward the warm water. She feels suffocated, and 
is struggling for air — which in her case means sea outlets. She 
has secured one in the Far East free from ice; she has created 
another in her own North; she will beyond question force open 
the Dardanelles for her Black Sea fleet; and to complete the 
circle — to open a window in every wall — she must have an 
egress into the seas of the Middle East — the Mediterranean of 
the future struggle. And, be it remembered, the strength of 
her desire is not less, but more, because it is of the nature of 
an instinctive impulse rather than a calculated plan. A man 
gasping for breath will smash things that he would not venture 
to touch deliberately. The desire seems to me natural and 
legitimate; I feel convinced that every reader will admit that 
he would share it if he were a Russian. This much at least is 
certain : it will ride rough-shod over conventions and protocols 
and treaties. One thing, and one alone, will keep Russia per- 
manently from the Persian Gulf: some force stronger than her 
own. 

In pursuance of her aim she has already accomplished much. 
From Resht, on the Caspian, practically a Russian port, she 
has made a good road to Tehran, and is reaping a rich com- 
mercial reward; she is pushing her railway fast from the Cau- 
casus; the only troops of the Shah worth considering are his 



422 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

so-called '' Cossacks," commanded by Russian officers; she is 
said to have a force at Turbat, to the distress of the natives; 
she secured a monopoly of railway-building in Persia for ten 
years; she has established a commercial agency and a Vice- 
Consul at Bushire; and she has recently coerced Persia into 
a new arrangement of ad valorem duties favourable to her own 
commerce. So far as North Persia is concerned, the Times 
admits that Russia " has established her commercial and indus- 
trial supremacy, not only by virtue of her geographical posi- 
tion, but also by bounties, financial encouragements, and a 
heavy expenditure of workmen's lives and hard cash." All 
these together, however, are of less significance than the step 
by which she laid hands upon Persian finance and the custom- 
houses — a step which shows that although she has been quies- 
cent over many things, she struck from the shoulder when a 
vital issue was raised by the action of another Power. 

In 1892 the (British) Imperial Bank of Persia lent the Per- 
sian Government £500,000, upon the security of the customs 
receipts of Southern Persia and the Persian Gulf. In 1898 the 
Persian Government desired to borrow more from the same 
source. The same security was sufficient, the loan was for 
" productive consumption," the British Government approved 
and was a party to the negotiations, and £1,250,000 was under- 
written in London. At the last moment Russia learned of the 
afifair, and at once forbade the Persian Government, sans 
phrases, to conclude the loan, and offered a much larger sum on 
the security of all the customs. Persia was desperately alarmed, 
Lord Salisbury (exactly as later in the similar matter of a Chi- 
nese loan) did nothing to support the British capitalists whom 
he had encouraged, and the whole business was abandoned.* 

• "From that time forward the influence of Russia in Persia has been in the as- 
cendant, while that of Great Britain has perceptibly waned. Hinc illcc lacrimc?. 
Hence the troubles and obstacles encountered by Indian merchants on the new Quetta- 
Nushki route, and hence many other untoward consequences of a policy of drift and 
abstention. It is now clear that we stood at the parting of the ways when we allowed 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 423 

For a time Persia, afraid to offend either Russia or England, 
refrained from borrowing at all, and then Russian pressure car- 
ried the day. On January 30, 1900, the (Russian) Banque des 
Prets de Perse took up a Persian five per cent, gold loan for 
22,500,000 roubles (£2,375,000 — ^$11,575,000), upon the secur- 
ity of all the custom-houses except those in the province of 
Ears and on the Persian Gulf, redeemable in seventy-five years, 
with the added condition that all previous loans should be paid 
ofT at once, and no more incurred until this loan is discharged, 
without the permission of the Russian bank. Accordingly, on 
February 23d, less than a month later, 5,000,000 roubles were 
remitted to London to pay off the British Loan of 1892. It 
was an audacious stroke, brilHantly successful. The remarks 
of the directors of the British bank and the underwriters are 
not recorded, but the Rossia recently alluded to the operation 
as '' removing from the neck of Persia the strangling rope 
twisted about it by England." 

The general result is that Persia is now financially a vassal 
of Russia. The particular results are that Persian duties are 
collected (except in Ears and upon the Persian Gulf) by Rus- 
sians, or rather by Belgians acting for them (precisely as in the 
case of the Chinese railways), a fact which, according to Mr. 
Foley, the representative of the Indian Tea x\ssociation, " has 
given Indian traders the idea that the Russian Government is 
all-powerful here, that Persia is practically Russian, and British 
influence is nil; " and that, pleading the danger of the intro- 
duction of plague, Russia has established quarantine stations 
at Seistan and on the Herat border, and (again quoting Mr. 

Persia to do the bidding of Russia, and to decline to complete the almost completed 
arrangements she had made with a group of British capitalists for a British loan to 
meet her financial necessities. But we made our choice, and we must now take the 
consequences." — The Times, August 31, 1901. 

The student cannot fail to be struck by the remarkable coincidence that in 161 7, 
four years after his election, Michael Romanoff, the first Tsar, borrowed 7,000 roubles 
from the Shah Abbas the Great of Persia, and that in 1900 Russia paid off the debt of 
Persia, preparatory to absorbing her. 



424 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

Foley) is able to '' paralyse any trade by the Quetta-Nushki 
route by keeping caravans and travellers unnecessarily long at 
any station before granting pratique." The Russian agents 
also, amongst other restrictions, forbid Indian merchants, car- 
rying goods and money, to enter with arms, although the road 
in Persia is unsafe and every Per^an is armed, and the Indian 
traders have offered to give any guarantee that no arms should 
be sold, and even to register every weapon and produce it again 
when they leave Persia. Thus a new and promising Indian 
trade outlet — which might be greatly developed by a railway 
from Quetta or Larkhana to Seistan — is in imminent danger of 
being blocked. 

So much for the nature of Russia's claim upon Persia, and 
what she has already accomplished there. What now are Eng- 
land's position and title in the same sphere? In Northern Per- 
sia we have neither right nor result to point to, beyond certain 
financial and other relations which give us no kind of special 
interest, and our indirect concern with the trade of Afghanistan, 
our sphere of influence. In Southern Persia and the Gulf, on 
the other hand, our interest is both great and intimate. The 
present situation in the Gulf is the direct result of our work. 
British soldiers and sailors, and British treasure, acting contin- 
uously over a long period of years, have imposed peace and 
brought prosperity to what was — and speedily would be again, 
were authority removed — a hotbed of tribal warfare, slavery, 
piracy, and disorder of every kind. From this point of view the 
trade of the Persian Gulf is our asset — we have created it. Rus- 
sia has nothing comparable of this kind to show. Moreover, 
although by her prohibitive tactics Russia has a large prepon- 
derance of the trade of Northern Persia, that of the Persian 
Gulf may be said to be almost wholly with the United Kingdom 
and India. Out of 188,608 tons of foreign shipping at the port 
of Busra in 1900, 172,938 were British.* Further, although the 

* The Statesman's Year Book for 1901, pp. 610, 611, gives the total import and 
export trade of the United Kingdom and India with Persia as ;^3,6i9,oo6, and that 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 425 

Banque des Prets de Perse is (like the Russo-Chinese Bank) only 
another name for the Russian Government, and is establishing 
new branches and agencies, the Imperial Bank of Persia, a Brit- 
ish institution, is " virtually the State bank of the country, the 
essential part of whose business is largely connected with the 
Government finances, such as the collection and transfer of Gov- 
ernment revenues, the issue of paper money and the nickel coin- 
age, the import of silver for the mint, etc." * 

There exists, however, a ground for the status quo in Persia 
of far greater importance from the standpoint of international 
relations than any commercial achievements or prospects — 
nothing less, in fact, than an engagement between the Govern- 
ments of Great Britain and Russia regarding the integrity and 
independence of Persia. This is the continuation of arrange- 
ments made and confirmed in 1834, 1838, 1839, and 1873, ^^^ 
our knowledge of it is conveyed in a despatch from Lord Salis- 
bury to Sir Robert Morier, British Ambassador at St. Peters- 
burg, dated March 12, 1888, in which he states that M. de Staal, 
Russian Ambassador in London, called at the Foreign Office 
that afternoon and read him a despatch ''written in very friendly 
terms." Lord Salisbury continues: 

In the first place, as regards our desire for an assurance that the engage- 
ment between the two Governments to respect and promote the integrity and 
independence of Persia is considered by the Russian Government as remaining 
in full force, M. de Giers states that, although, in their opinion, there are no 
present grounds for apprehending any danger to Persia, and although they have 

of Russia as ;i^l, 200,000. These figures can hardly be correct, and indeed it is prob- 
ably impossible to get the correct figures from any source, as the Custom House does 
not furnish them, and in its returns " the countries only from which merchandise 
actually starts for Persia are given. — (Mr.Consul-General Wood,)" On the other hand, 
a Renter telegram from Tehran gives the total foreign trade of Persia for the year end- 
ing March 21, 1901, f s ;^8,ooo,ooo, and states that of this, fifty-six per cent, was trade 
with Russia, and twenty-four per cent, trade with Great Britain. But these are the 
figures of the Russo-Belgian customs staff, and by no means to be accepted without 
scrutiny. 

* Mr. Consul-General C. G. Wood, Report for the Year jgoo on the Trade of 
Azerbaijan, p. 19. 



426 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

received no communication on the subject from Tehran, yet the Russian Gov- 
ernment have no objection to placing again on record that their views on this 
point are in no way altered. The Persian Government, his Excellency adds, 
have on more than one occasion had tangible proof of this, and he alludes to a 
military demonstration made at the request of the Shah in 1880 on the Cauca- 
sian frontier, when a portion of the Province of Azerbaidjan was suffering from 
the incursions of bands of Kurds. 



I have expressed in M. de Staal, and I request your Excellency to offer M. 
■de Giers, my best thanks for this frank and courteous communication of the 
views of the Russian Government. It has been highly satisfactory to Her 
Majesty's Government to learn that those views are so much in accordance with 
their own, and they owe their acknowledgments to M. de Giers for enabling Sir 
H. D. Wolff to inaugurate his mission by an assurance to the Shah that the 
engagements between Great Britain and Russia to respect and promote the 
integrity and independence of the Persian Kingdom have again been renewed 
and confirmed.* 



This important despatch shows, on the highest possible au- 
thority, that an engagement of long standing between the Brit- 
ish and Russian Governments to respect the '' integrity and inde- 
pendence " of Persia was declared by both to be binding upon 
them fourteen years ago. This engagement still holds good, 
for in reply to an inquiry by myself, in a speech in the House 
of Commons on January 22, 1902, Lord Cranborne, Under- 
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, made this important 
statement : 

The Hon. Member for Wolverhampton referred to an exchange of notes 
which took place in 1888 in regard to Persia, and he quite accurately quoted 
what passed on that occasion. It was that mutual assurances had been given 
that the policy of England and Russia was the maintenance of the integrity of 
Persia ; and I have special reason to believe that on both sides that assurance is 
maintained. 

* Treaties containing Guarantees or Engagements by Great Britain in Relation to 
the Territory or Government of other Countries. Miscellaneous Series, No. 2 (1898), 
p. 130. 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 427 

The whole question of the future of Persia, however, is one of 
undoubted urgency. There is in existence an arrangement be- 
tween Russia and the SuUan regarding future railways in Asiatic 
Turkey; there is some ground for the behef that Russia has 
secretly acquired from Persia a lease of one of the ports on the 
Gulf; Germany has the concession of a railway from Constanti- 
nople to Baghdad, and her agents have already once appUed in 
the name of the Sultan for a harbour on the Gulf; * British gun- 
boats have forcibly prevented the cession of a coaling station to 
France on the Gulf, and the landing of Turkish troops at another 
port there; the Indian Government is being strongly urged to 
construct a railway to the Persian frontier; the Russian and Con- 
tinental press sees an imminent contest between Great Britain 
and Russia over the whole issue; and the subject of the fate of 
Persia in the future relations of the two nations has been raised 
in an acute form by several English writers. In its frankest 
form this urgent question is, should England consent to the an- 
nexation of Persia by Russia in order to effect an Anglo-Russian 
settlement of all matters of possible conflict between the two 
nations, and to replace the present relations of suspicion and 
veiled hostility, with the possibility of a ruinous conflict, by an 
amicable and inclusive understanding? 

The question is of the greatest importance and deUcacy. 
Those who answer it in the affirmative begin by laying stress 
upon the rehef every British statesman, and, indeed, every 
thoughtful citizen, would feel if ah chance of a war with Russia 
were removed — the possibility of which dogs our foreign policy 
at every step. Upon this we are all agreed. They then pro- 
ceed to offer us a choice between fighting a Continental coali- 
tion, to be created by Germany, and coming to an arrangement 
with Russia. And some press this point with the peculiar con- 
fidence which attaches to anonymity. " Unless by conscription, 
a fleet at the three-Power standard, and service estimates rising 

* See page 258. 



428 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

at no distant date to eighty or ninety millions a year, there can 
be no adequate insurance against the appearance of Germany 
and her fleet at the head of a hostile Europe but a settlement 
with Russia by the unreserved relinquishment of Persia to her 
influence. There is no diplomatic alternative worth considera- 
tion." * This course has also been strongly urged by a group 
of anonymous writers in the '' National Review," but their plan 
is not so bold, for it consists in offering Russia a commercial 
outlet on the Persian Gulf, ^' in return for an undertaking on the 
part of Russia to respect the political status quo along the shores 
of the Gulf." This is a case of Mr. Balfour and Port Arthur over 
again, and would be followed, in my opinion, by a similar result; 
namely, that we should give away everything and provoke ill- 
will to boot. Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, who writes upon 
foreign affairs with much knowledge and sobriety of judgment, 
has also strongly advocated a complete abandonment of our in- 
terests in Persia, as the only way to avoid a " desperate war," 
and further " deplorable results " from surrenders to Germany 
of the kind we have recently experienced in the Far East. 

It cannot be denied that there is much force in the conten- 
tion that England could hardly fight Russia in Persia without 
military sacrifices to which the nation would be most loath to 
submit on such an issue. This is a question for military experts, 
of course, but the dififlculty of the situation that would arise if 
Russia simultaneously seized Herat and advanced an army to 
Tehran (where it would meet with no local opposition whatever), 
may surely be appreciated by any thoughtful Englishman. 
Moreover, we should almost certainly not be offered the decision 
of any such clear-cut problem as this. Russia would assuredly 
follow her usual tactics of advancing step by step, no one step 
being sufficiently hostile in appearance to furnish a direct chal- 
lenge to a war in which the fate of the British Empire would be 
at stake, but all of them forming at last the fait accompli envis- 

* "Calchas," in the Fortnightly Review, December, 1901, p. 947. 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 429 

aged from the first. The recent history of Central Asia afifords 
a precise precedent. 

On the other hand, there is weighty authority against the 
abandonment of our position on the Persian Gulf. Captain 
Mahan, for example, has made the following observations upon 
this question: 

Progress through Persia would not only approach the gulf, but if success- 
ful would turn — would outflank — the mountains of Afghanistan, avoiding the 
difficulties presented by the severe features of that country, and by the character 
of its inhabitants. Russia would thus obtain a better position both in itself and 
in its communication with the north, for beginning and sustaining operations in 
India itself. 

Unless Great Britain and Germany are prepared to have the Suez route to 
India and the Far East closed to them in time of war, they cannot afford to see 
the borders of the Levant and the Persian Gulf become the . territorial base for 
the navy of a possible enemy, especially if it appear that the policy of the latter 
in the Pacific runs seriously counter to their own. * 

And Lord Curzon committed himself some time ago to a 
most uncompromising attitude. After describing the results of 
British surrender of the control of the Persian Gulf, he says: 
" I do not think there can be two opinions among Englishmen 
that there is no justification, either in policy or in reason, for 
exposing India to such a danger, or for allowing South Persia 
to fall into Russian hands." f And in another place he has 
declared that he would regard the cession to Russia of a Persian 
Gulf port as " a wanton rupture of the status quo, and as an in- 
ternational provocation to war, and I should impeach the British 
Minister who was guilty of acquiescing in such a surrender as a 
traitor to his country." X 

And Major Francis Edward Younghusband has put the ob- 
jection in a concrete form : 

* T/iif Problem of Asia, pp. 56, 77. 

t Russia in Central Asia, second edition, p. 378. 

X Persia (1892), vol. 11, p. 465. 



430 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

Some will say there is room enough in Asia for both England and Russia 
and why not let Russia go to the Persian Gulf if she wants to ? There is room, 
of course, but Russia already has much the larger share of it. While we have 
less than 2,000,000 she has 6,500,000 square miles. Besides this she is just 
absorbing Manchuria with another 360,000 square miles, and we admit that she 
must have Mongolia with 1,300,000 square miles and Chinese Turkestan with 
580,000 square miles. In addition to all this, which amounts in the aggregate 
to 2,250,000 square miles, we recognise that she must control Northern Persia. 
Is not this enough room without conceding Southern Persia as well ? * 

These are all opinions entitled to respectful consideration; 
but upon examination, it will appear that the authorities pro- 
fessing them contradict themselves or one another. Captain 
Mahan, for instance, says in one place that Russia estabHshed 
in the Persian Gulf would be a " perpetual menace in war," and 
that England '' cannot afford to see the Persian Gulf become the 
territorial base for the navy of a possible enemy "; yet in another 
he declares that the maintenance there, by Russia, of " a navy 
sufficient to be a serious consideration to the fleets of Great 
Britain, and to those who would be her natural allies upon the 
sea in case of complications in the farther East, would involve 
an exhausting effort, and a naval abandonment of the Black 
Sea, or of the China Sea, or of both." f It may fairly be argued 
that we do not run much risk in affording to a possible enerny 
an opportunity of which he cannot make use without exhausting 
himself. Lord Curzon, again, says that '' The absorption of 
N. E. Persia and Khorasan will provide an alternative route of 
advance, either upon Herat or, through Seistan, upon Beluchis- 
tan and India itself." X Yet according to Major Younghus- 
band, in the letter previously cited, " we recognise that Russia 
must control Northern Persia," and therefore what Lord Cur- 
zon fears for Herat has already happened ! And surely the in- 
vasion of India through Seistan is a contingency remote enough 
to be disregarded. It appears to me, therefore, that the opin- 

* Letter to T/ie Thnes, December 5, 1901. 

f TAe Problem of Asia, p. 119. 

X Russia in Central Asia, second edition, p. 377. 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 431 

ions even of these authorities do not bring the solution much 
nearer. 

Moreover, there can be no great and far-reaching arrange- 
ment between two Powers in w^hich some risks are not incurred. 
The question must be whether the advantages greatly outweigh 
the dangers. A Russia naval base and fleet in the Persian Gulf 
would necessitate a strengthening of our sea power in Indian 
waters, for the safeguarding alike of India and our routes to the 
Far East and to Australasia, and the building of certain strategi- 
cal Indian railways, e.g., from Ahmedabad to Karachi. But 
friendly relations with Russia (including, as they necessarily 
would, a similar settlement with France), placed upon a perma- 
nent and defined footing, would be cheaply purchased at the 
price of an additional squadron in those waters, and a railway or 
two. And would it not be rather an advantage than otherwise 
to us, who must for our very existence retain the command of 
the sea, that Russia should come down to the sea and thereby 
oiTer a fresh vulnerable place and a new trade-route to our nat- 
ural means of attack, if ever friendship failed? The more the 
elephant comes to the water, the better the chance of the whale. 
And, to recur to the kernel of the question, can we, a sea power, 
prevent Russia, with her vast army, carrying out these land oper- 
ations in far-off Asia whenever she may choose to do so? 

This question can no longer be regarded as one between 
England and Russia alone. Upon its decision hang two other 
international issues of great gravity. If we come to terms with 
Russia, our relations with France, already happily upon a better 
footing, must also necessarily improve. To us this would be 
easy and natural, but France would follow Russia's lead in such 
a matter, where she would hesitate, from old suspicion and recent 
sharp divergence of interest, to take action by herself. French- 
men, usually so alert to perceive national movements of sympa- 
thy or the reverse, would then probably at last learn that there 
is no country except the United States for whom so much good- 



432 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

will is felt in England, or against whom national passion could 
only with so much difficulty be aroused, as France. And to 
nine Englishmen out of ten the fact that a Russian understand- 
ing would necessarily involve a settlement with France also, 
would be an additional and strong argument in its favour. 

The other international issue is unhappily of a different char- 
acter. The feeling of the British people toward Germany has 
undergone a serious change of late, and although it would be 
impolitic to exaggerate this, it would be even more unwise to 
ignore it. Several causes have brought about the change. 
The masses of the people, acting upon simple impressions and 
instinctive impulses, have been deeply afifronted by the indecent 
caricatures of King and Queen which have enjoyed absolute 
immunity in a land where lese-majeste is officially regarded as a 
peculiarly heinous offence, and by the veritable campaign of 
invective and '' foul and filthy lies," as Sir Edward Grey has 
rightly called them, directed against our officers and men in 
South Africa.* At first this was confined to that consider- 
able portion of the German press known to be corrupt, and 
it was fed by the ample means of which the Boer representatives 
in Brussels at first disposed. But later it spread to more re- 
spectable German journals, until virtually the whole press reeked 
with it — the Socialist Vorzvdrts being the chief honourable ex- 
ception in this as in so many other matters — the insertion of 
indecent advertisements, for example. It is easy to analyse the 
origins of this seemingly volcanic upheaval. Bismarck system- 
atically corrupted the press, and poisoned the atmosphere of 
Germany with suspicion and hatred of England. There are his 
chickens coming home to roost. The extraordinary growth of 
national sentiment after the w^ar of 1870, legitimate and natural 

* Lord Roberts, Commander-in-chief, has even thought it necessary to give his 
" most positive assurance " to a German lady correspondent that the statements that 
Boer women and girls have been violated by British officers and soldiers, and that all 
Boer females over twelve years of age in a certain refugee camp were "despatched to 
Pretoria for immoral purposes " were " absolutely without foundation " ! 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 433 

enough, has now run to excess in that fatal pride which was the 
favourite theme of the Greek dramatist. The unparalleled de- 
velopment of German commerce and the sudden accretion of 
wealth has been accompanied by a distinct lowering of the old 
German standards of mental sobriety and severe morality, with 
the result that serious Germans have not hesitated to write in 
alarm of certain recent events and tendencies both at home and 
in the Colonies. This analysis, however, though it may explain 
the origin of the anti-British campaign, cannot mitigate its in- 
tense effect upon the minds of innumerable Englishmen, who 
have seen their country befouled by a dirty torrent which even 
the example and speech of the Emperor himself are powerless 
to stem. 

The anger in the minds of the British people at large is 
matched, unfortunately, by the alarm with which thoughtful 
observers have noticed certain revelations of modern German 
policy. The repeated declarations of the Emperor concerning 
the part to be played in the immediate future by the German 
navy, his dictum that " Our future lies upon the water/' the 
official definition that the navy must be able to " keep the North 
Sea clear," its rapid growth, officially insisted upon in the face 
of every pecuniary and Parliamentary obstacle, and a recent 
revelation that it is being pushed forward even faster than the 
German public was aware — have naturally raised acutely the 
question, what role, against whom, is the German navy in- 
tended to play? And the geographical situation of Germany, 
her rapidly increasing population, and her over-production, 
demanding new and protected markets, together with the 
fact that only two countries, England and Holland, possess 
over-sea territories corresponding to the German demand, 
supply the answer. Holland is surely destined to come under 
German influence, and if the German fleet to be is not in- 
tended — alone or by judicious alliance — to neutralise England's 
command of the sea, with its natural commercial consequences 



434 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

which Germany feels restricting her ambition and needs at so 
many points, and to secure for her a position on the water 
analogous to that she enjoys on land, then a foreigner can hardly 
see what reason it has for coming into existence at all. At any 
rate, whether this be the aim or not, the growth of the German 
navy is calculated to make it a possibility. 

The alarm of students of foreign affairs rests also on more 
precise grounds than the above. The German Foreign Minister 
has informed the world that Germany sounded other Powers of 
Europe concerning a possible coalition against England in con- 
nection with South African affairs, and that having discovered 
that she would be '' isolated " in acting against us, to be " patri- 
otic " could do nothing. A recent writer has expressed '' doubt 
whether history records a more impudent avowal of an un- 
friendly act," and if for the word '' impudent," which has no 
applicability, the word " frank " were substituted, the remark 
is not exaggerated. Again, the unconcealed and almost con- 
temptuous hostility to England showed by Count von Walder- 
see in China, against which both Lord Salisbury and Lord Lans- 
downe protested in sharp terms,* and which we should presum- 
ably have met in a peremptory manner if almost every available 
British soldier had not been in South Africa, could not but pro- 
duce a lamentable impression in this country. Finally, the 
manner in which the German Government has treated Lord 
Salisbury's Anglo-German Convention regarding China (now 

• For instance, Lord Salisbury to the British Ambassador in Berlin, October 30, 
1900: ''The arrangements referred to with regard to railway traffic assume to deal 
with private British commercial interests without consultation with the persons affected 
or communication with her Majesty's Government. You should request the German 
Government to obtain from Count Waldersee an explanation of these arrangements." 
And Lord Lansdowne to the same, November 27th: "In the opinion of her 
Majesty's Government, such an arrangement, closely affecting the interests of the 
British bondholders, should not have been made without consultation with their rep- 
resentatives or previous communication with her Majesty's Government. I should 
wish your Excellency to point this out to the German Government." 

A summary of German anti-British action in China was given in a striking letter to 
the Times signed " Far East," on August 26, 1901. 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 435 

known in Germany as the '' Yang-tsze Agreement " !) has 
changed many doubts of its poHcy into conviction. This mad 
agreement formally gave Germany henceforth an equal right 
in our own Chinese sphere of influence, and only imposed upon 
her in return obligations of so flimsy a character that she has 
already tossed them aside. 

The simple truth, as it has long been known to the few and 
is now at last beginning to be appreciated by the many, is that 
Germany has come to regard us with hostility, tempered by in- 
difference, if not by contempt, and that she will do almost any- 
thing, or leave almost anything undone, to keep on good terms 
with Russia. She is running counter to Russia, as I have pre- 
viously shown, on one great matter of foreign poHcy, but with 
this exception the German attitude toward Russia is only 
equalled in submission by the attitude of the British Government 
for the past seven years toward Germany. There is nothing in 
this for Englishmen to blame or to resent : every independent 
nation has the right to make its policy subserve its own ends; 
but there is very much in it from which they should take warn- 
ing, if not alarm, and the German people cannot be surprised 
that Englishmen who read the venerable Professor Mommsen's 
" regret . . . that a deep and incurable split " is " now 
yawning between the two nations," should themselves reluc- 
tantly recognise that the former good relations with their neigh- 
bours across the North Sea have, for the present at any fate, 
given place on both sides to a very different feeling. 

To return now, after this excursus, to the relations of Eng- 
land and Russia, it is evident that if there is any ground whatever 
to fear the active hostility of Germany in the near future, with 
possibly other attempts to form coalitions against us, the fact 
must exercise a very grave influence upon our minds in consid- 
ering our future relations with other Powers. If we do Ger- 
many an injustice in being thus influenced, if our suspicions and 
alarms are unfounded — and there is still enough good-will left 



436 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

in this country for Germany, admiration for the great quahties 
of the Teutonic people, and sympathetic respect for their great 
ruler to create the earnest hope that it may be so — the fault is 
her own. We have been long enough in learning to distrust 
her, and it is only as a measure of self-defence that we now re- 
gard her attitude as an additional reason for endeavouring to 
adjust our national interests to those of Russia and France. 



The reader will probably have concluded by now that I also 
am an advocate of the policy of securing Russian good-will by 
the relinquishment of Persia to her influence. That is not quite 
the case. I am most earnestly in favour of a rapprochement with 
Russia, and after long consideration I do not share the view 
that a Russian port on the Persian Gulf would necessarily in- 
volve a serious danger to the British Empire. Certainly it is 
illogical to admit one rival Power — to Koweit — and at the same 
time see disaster in the approach of another. But there are 
other aspects of the proposal in which I see grave objections. 
To begin with, this is not a matter which we should approach 
like a bull at a gate. It is not the kind of masterpiece that can 
be fondu d'un trait. I think I know enough of Russia to say 
that to approach her with a complete cut-and-dried ofifer, spring- 
ing from no succession of events or arising from no diplomatic 
dead-lock, would be to invite certain rebuff. She would fear 
us bearing gifts. She would conclude that our new-found 
friendship had its root in weakness, not in conviction. She 
would observe that not until we had fought an unsuccessful war 
for more than two years, spent two hundred millions of money, 
seen Consols down to 92, lost twenty thousand men, and won- 
dered how we were going to replace our present army when 
it is disbanded, did it occur to us to remember that we loved 
Russia so much that w^e would gladly make a heavy sacrifice for 
her good-will. This is what she — and others — would retort. 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 437 

and it may as well be set down bluntly. We are far too apt to 
throw dust in our own eyes in dealing with other nations. To 
say to her, '' Please take Persia and be friends," for that is what 
the offer amounts to when stripped of its diplomatic foliage, 
would cause her to draw two instant conclusions : first, that we 
were in a far weaker and more dangerous position than she had 
thought; and second, that we had made up our minds that we 
could not possibly preserve our interests in Persia against her 
influence. And neither of these conclusions would be hkely to 
move her to a generous or a grateful response. 

Nor could Russia be wholly blamed for such an attitude. 
We suffer here from the multitudinous errors of our past poHcy 
toward her — now hot, now cold; now abjectly yielding, now 
suddenly voting millions for war in a few minutes; now de- 
ploying our fleet against her when exhausted at the moment 
of victory, now casually admitting that we had " put our money 
on the wrong horse "; now inviting her to a port in the China 
Sea, now reproaching her for fortifying it; now graciously re- 
marking that there is " room enough in Asia " for us both, now 
thinking we had cleverly got Germany to help us to stop her 
there. And as a result of long experience of our diplomacy 
Russia will take a great deal of convincing that we should stick 
to any line of policy, or that we should offer more than a forensic 
opposition to anything she might do. 

Devoutly to be wished as is a cordial settlement with Russia 
of our respective world-interests, and, though there is every op- 
portunity for it and no insuperable obstacle to prevent, it is 
unlikely to be reached except in one way. To deal with Russia 
on equal terms we must begin by regaining her respect. I do 
not mean her respect for our moral qualities or our disinterested 
aims; she will probably persist in thinking us very much like 
other people in those matters; but her respect for our .sagacity, 
our tenacity, and our strength. And we shall only accomplish 
this by holding our own wherever we come into contact with 



438 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

her — by never letting our words run ahead of our intentions, by 
never forgetting that deeds are more eloquent than despatches, 
by never taking hold of anything she desires that we can well 
do without, and by never letting go when we have once taken 
hold. 

In saying this I am prepared for the retort that amicable 
relations are impossible with a nation whose agents on every 
outpost or contested field act without much scruple on their own 
initiative, while the central authority is usually ready to profit 
by their indiscretions, even while ostensibly repudiating them. 
It would be easy to give a score examples of this — in fact, it is 
a kind of unwritten understanding in Russian diplomacy that a 
distant agent may do pretty much what he will at his own risk. 
If it succeeds, he is handsomely rewarded; if it fails, he is ruth- 
lessly dismissed. It is true, too, that the Russian diplomatist 
does not act up to the level of Bismarck's profession, OMziell 
wird nicht gelogen: the late Count Muravief will always be re- 
membered in diplomacy for one startling performance of this 
nature.* But my reply is, first, that our own vacillation and 
malleability have encouraged Russia to take Hberties with us; 
she does not play these tricks upon Germany or Japan. And 
second, we had better learn that the obligation to speak the 
truth to your own disadvantage is not considered abroad to hold 
good in diplomatic intercourse. There is no question here of 
*' lying "; the " lie " only arises when there is a recognised obli- 
gation, as among honourable people in ordinary life, to speak 
the truth. It is not a " lie " to dehberately give your opponent 
by your play a false idea of your hand in a game of cards; Russian 
diplomatists — and most others — regard their work also as a 
game— with subtler rules, for higher stakes. When they score 
against us by taking advantage of what they consider one of the 
legitimate openings, and arousing in us a child-like belief in the 

* See "Correspondence respecting the affairs of China," (China No. i, 1898), 
passim. 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 439 

thing which is not, their satisfaction and their astonishment are 
equal. Of course the diplomatic falsehood must be used rarely 
and with discretion, and the diplomatist, not a fool, who is 
known never to use it under any circumstances enjoys a pecuUar 
prestige and authority. The late Foreign Minister of a certain 
Great Power was known in diplomatic circles as " the biggest 
liar in Europe "; his successor, on the other hand, owes much 
of his remarkable success to the fact that he always speaks the 
truth. I was once talking to a great foreign statesman upon a 
matter at issue between another country and my own, and in an- 
swer to a remark he made I pointed out that the Eoreign Min- 
ister of that other country had just publicly declared the con- 
trary to be the case. " And you believe him? " was the simple 
reply. The British Ambassador to a Great Power once said to 

me, '' I shall believe that is capable of deceiving me when 

I find that he has done so, and not before." This is the pubHc- 
school spirit in diplomacy — the finest spirit in the world in its 
place, but if I had been Foreign Secretary I should have retired 
that Ambassador forthwith. It would have been better for us, 
I may add, if he had been retired. I once asked a Foreign Min^ 
ister for information upon a certain point. " Why do you ask 
me?" he said; "why don't you ask your Ambassador?" I 
looked at him for a moment, and then he smiled, and we talked 
of something else. His smile meant that he knew, and knew 
that I knew, that the Ambassador in question would believe 
anything he was told, and was therefore the last person to apply 
to for information — a habit which was the despair of his subor- 
dinates, who grew haggard coding despatches which they knew 
conveyed erroneous impressions. But these reminiscences are 
carrying me from the matter in hand, which is that we shall re- 
gain the respect of Russia in diplomacy by treating her with 
honourable frankness, and at the same time making it perfectly 
clear to her that we are not to be deceived by any fair words and 
that any arrangement with her must be set down definitely in 



440 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

the bond. When Russian statesmen realise that a new spirit — 
the spirit of efficiency — has come into the conduct of British 
afifairs — that we are genuinely friendly at heart, whether we are 
on the top of the wave or in the trough, but that when we are hit 
we. are absolutely certain to hit back, even if some day we have 
to prohibit their goods in our markets to prevent the further 
prohibition of our goods in theirs, they will be as ready for an 
entente as we are, and then some '* casual meeting at an inn " 
will do the rest. 

Now, to have done with this matter of Persia, upon which 
so much hangs, when the entente comes, what form is it to take? 
In fairness this question should only be put to a statesman who 
has '' seen the correspondence," not to a humble unofficial stu- 
dent; but I have my own notion of an answer, and it is based 
upon the belief that the diplomatic struggles and even the wars 
of the future will not be for territory, but against commercial 
discrimination. I see no good reason in British interests why 
Russia should not develop Persia as a market for her surplus 
manufactures, why she should not bring her goods and passen- 
gers to the sea through Persia, why she should not have a naval 
base in the Persian Gulf. But I see excellent reasons why she 
should not come down to the Persian Gulf and immediately 
extinguish British and Indian trade there, as she has virtually 
done in Central Asia, by the imposition of absolutely prohibitive 
duties. If she would bind herself, by formal treaty, to admit 
all foreign goods to Persia and transport them upon Persian 
railways on precisely the same terms as Russian goods, she 
might, in my opinion, have Persia to-morrow, with all the vast 
advantage its possession would confer upon her.* 

* The following passage in the article entitled "Russia and England," by " A 
Russian Diplomatist " is also worth quoting both as an example of the use of assever- 
ation, instead of solid argument, in the Russian demand for Persia, and also because 
in the last sentence the writer apparently foresees, and more siw, hastens to concede 
at this preliminary stage, the suggestion I make here : 

" The geographical position of Russia and of Persia have bound the essential inter- 
ests of those two countries together for more than a century, and it appears to u& 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 441 

Such a treaty, however, would have to be formally recog- 
nised by other nations besides ourselves, so that any infraction 
of it would involve something more than a bi-lateral struggle. 
And first of all I should look to the United States to be a party 
to such a compact. This is, I know, not the common view of 
what the American Government may be expected to do, but I 
believe the future will see American policy modified in this 
matter, as it has been so strikingly modified of late in others. 
Captain Mahan has been quoted on the other side in this Persian 
question, and I may draw from his remarkable insight two 
striking passages in support of my own contention: 

Americans must accept and familiarise their minds to the fact that, with 
their irrevocable entry into the world's polity, first, by the assertion of the Mon- 
roe doctrine, and since by their insular acquisitions — above all, the Philippines — 
and by the interests at stake in China, they cannot divest themselves of con- 
cern, practical as well as speculative, in such a question as the balance of power 
in the Levant, or at the entrance of the Persian Gulf. 

As contrasted with the political unity of Russia and her geographical con- 
tinuity, the influences that can possibly be opposed to her are diverse and scat- 
tered. They find, however, a certain unifying motive in a common interest, of 
unfettered commerce and of transit in the regions in question . // is upon the 
realisation of this interest, and upon the accurate appreciation of their power 
to protect it — and not upon artificial combinations that correct policy or suc- 
cessful concert in the future must rest. * 

Nothing could be truer or more lucidly stated than the sen- 
tence I have itaUcised. Indeed, it seems to need only to be 

impossible that Russia should yield any of her acquired advantages to any other 
Power. We therefore cannot see any serious possibility of England's preventing 
Russia from approaching toward the Persian Gulf. It is possible that this goal will 
not be reached to-morrow, but it certainly will be in the near future. In any event a 
partition of influence in Persia between Russia and England appears to be outside the 
range of practical politics. However, no impediments would be imposed upon the 
development of British commerce as protected by international rights and demanded 
by the needs of the Persian people." 

The obvious comment upon the last sentence is that if no impediments were placed 
upon British trade in a Russian Persia, it would be the one exception to a hitherto 
invariable rule. 

* The Problem of Asia, pp. 68 and 57. 



442 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

understood to be accepted. For the United States, hardly less 
than for England, open markets for manufactures are an essen- 
tial condition of future welfare, and it is irrational in this age, 
when steam and electricity have annihilated distance, that this 
interest should be insisted upon.in one part of the world and set 
aside as contrary to tradition and policy in another. If the 
Open Door in China justifies an American Secretary of State in 
sending a strong despatch to all the European governments and 
to Japan, why does not the Open Door in Persia? In logic, 
therefore, as well as in the pursuit of legitimate and imperative 
national interest, I fail to see why the United States should de- 
cline to be a party to a multi-lateral agreement giving great 
geographical and transit advantages in Persia to the Power 
which most desires and needs them, in return for an equality of 
trade for all the world there. Similar considerations should 
bring about the adhesion of France, Italy, and Japan. I omit 
Germany, because she is apparently already engaged in an at- 
tempt to extend her own high tariff to that part of the world, 
but France has not received from Russia such treatment in the 
matter of tariff as to cause her to welcome the extension of Rus- 
sian duties to another great part of the world, and the fact that 
she has concluded a miHtary aUiance for mutual defence with 
Russia is no reason why she should not do all in her power to 
extend the market for her own people's manufactures and 
products. 

This suggestion opens up a wide field for discussion, and it 
would be foreign to my general subject to review the arguments 
for and against it. I hope to return to it elsewhere, so here I 
will only point out that if once adopted anywhere this policy of 
international commercial equality in regard to the future dis- 
posal of undeveloped countries would acquire an almost irresist- 
ible moral momentum, and would go far toward removing from 
mankind the shadow of several imminent wars. 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 443 

Finally, let us consider for a moment what is the British 
alternative policy toward Persia, and on this point a recent 
debate in Parliament enables us to speak with confidence. In 
two debates in the House of Commons Lord Cranborne has 
spoken for the British Government upon the Persian ques- 
tion. I take these passages from his speeches: 

Our position in the Persian Gulf, both commercially and politically, was 
one of a very special character, and his Majesty's Government had always con- 
sidered that the ascendency of Great Britain in the Persian Gulf was the foun- 
dation of British policy. This was not merely a question of theory ; it was a 
statement of fact. Our trade interests there far exceeded those of any other 
country. Our recognised maritime supremacy secured our political ascendency. 
The policy of the Government with regard to Koweit was to maintain the status 
quo, and this they had put forward with some insistence. 

You may roughly lay down that our object in Asia is to maintain the status 
quo. I do not mean to say that that is a statement to which there may not be 
some exceptions, but taking it generally, the policy of England throughout Asia 
is to maintain the status quo. That is an advantageous policy. It was not 
always our policy, because at other times a different policy was more suitable ; 
but at the present moment, with the very great extension which our Empire has 
had of late years, undoubtedly the policy of maintaining the status quo is the 
right one for this country. This is a policy which may be mistaken for what 
was called by one of the honourable members who have spoken, a policy of drift. 
It does not follow that it is a policy of drift. It is a difficult policy to main- 
tain, because as other countries advance a purely defensive policy must always 
present much greater obstacles than any other. What is true of the East 
generally is true of Persia. We have very large interests there. Far be it from 
me to minimise them in the least. They are interests of the highest political 
order, vast commercial interests which it is our wish and our duty to maintain. 
We see no reason why that should lead us into anything but friendly relations 
with Russia ; but although we seek friendly relations, I must remind the House 
that those friendly relations are not to be sought at the cost of any treaty rights 
we possess. Whether to Russia or to any other country, it does not become us 
to go cap in hand for an understanding. Our policy is the integrity of Persia. 
That unselfishness is not due to any elaborate moral motive, because it is our 
mterest that Persia should remain in its present territorial condition. But, 
when I state that, I ought to add that there are limits to that policy. That 
policy cannot be pursued independently of the action of other powers. We 
are anxious for the integrity of Persia, but we are anxious far more for the 



444 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

balance of power ; and it would be impossible for us, whatever the cause, to 
abandon what we look upon as our rightful position in Persia. Especially is 
that true in regard to the Persian Gulf, as I had the honour to state to the 
House a few days ago. It is true not only of the Persian Gulf, but of the 
Southern Provinces of Persia, and those provinces which border on our Indian 
Empire. Our rights there, and our position of ascendency, we cannot abandon. 
In the gulf itself, as I ventured to state on the previous occasion, our ascendency 
is not merely a question of theory, but a question of fact. Our position of 
ascendency is assured by the existence of our maritime supremacy. 

More information is often secured in the House of Com- 
mons by carefully worded questions to Ministers than from 
their speeches, and the above exposition of policy is usefully 
supplemented by two answers which Lord Cranborne made 
about the same time. Here is one: 

The occupation of a port in the Persian Gulf by any Power would be incon- 
sistent with the maintenance of the status quo which, as I have already informed 
the House, is the policy of his Majesty's Government. 

And in reply to an inquiry whether any exchange of views 
had taken place between his Majesty's Government and the 
German Government as to the selection of a terminus on the 
Persian Gulf, Lord Cranborne said: 

His Majesty's Government have intimated to that of Germany that they 
are in no way opposed to the scheme, in which it is probable that British capi- 
talists will wish to take a considerable share. There has already been some 
discussion of the point referred to in the second part of the question between 
the two governments ; and no decision with regard to it will be come to without 
a further exchange of views.* 

The situation is therefore this: England's policy is the 
status quo in Persia and the Persian Gulf; but this means the 
political and not the commercial status quo; and the latter is 

* These quotations are taken from T/i( Times Parliamentary reports of January 
17, 23, 24 and 25, 1902. 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 445 

compatible with a German railway to the gulf and a German 
terminus there, which is actually under discussion at this 
moment between England and Germany. 

Such a policy is self-condemned. To suppose that Ger- 
many will rest content with a merely commercial outlet, and 
that she will not subsequently find insuperable reasons for 
fortifying it and making it a basis for her ships of war is, in 
my opinion, childish. The result will be the fiasco and the 
friction of Port Arthur over again. The British Government, 
in fact, is simply maintaining its old policy of paper protests 
against Russia, while yielding once more to German pressure. 
And I may perhaps quote my own comment upon Lord Cran- 
borne's statement in the debate already mentioned: 

I hold that there should be a definite statement of the policy of his Majesty's 
Government in Persia — not merely the policy of saying " hands off " to Germany 
and " hands off " to Russia, and still doing nothing, while both countries steadily 
advanced until British interests found themselves between them like a nut in a 
nut-cracker. In conclusion I am strongly of opinion that if the British policy is 
simply to keep out Russia, more particularly by means of any understanding, 
secret or otherwise, which would let Germany into the Persian Gulf, then we 
are preparing for ourselves in the future not only grievous commercial injury 
but possibly also imperial disaster.* 

Our policy, in a word, is simply that deprecated so neatly 
by Sir Edward Grey (Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in 
the last Liberal government) in this debate — " a policy which 
combines in a most extraordinary way the disadvantages both 
of yielding and of resistance, without getting the advantages 
of either course." Lord Cranborne says that we must not go 
*' cap in hand " to Russia. Precisely; but my own contention 

*This speech was of course made before Lord Cranborne had admitted that Eng- 
land had practically consented to a German outlet upon the Persian Gulf. I may add 
that the fear I expressed on page 402, foot-note, has since been confirmed. The 
existence of a secret treaty between Great Britain and Germany has been officially 
admitted. 



446 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

is that we shall only arrive at good relations with her by going 
boldly cap on head — in Mr. Meredith's deHghtful . phrase, 

With hindward feather and with forward toe. 



In considering this most grave question of the relations of 
Russia and England, we must never hide from ourselves the fact 
that it is no easy matter for two nations so dissimilar in condi- 
tions, opinions, institutions, and ideals, to arrive at harmony of 
purpose. Russia is an autocracy : so long as a strong and con- 
sistent autocrat rules, absolute continuity of aim is probable. In 
Great Britain, though persistence of view is to be expected, rep- 
resentative institutions, reflecting a gust of national passion or 
modification of national conviction, may quickly register a 
change of policy. The accession of a new autocrat, on the 
other hand, may substitute a feeble will and a fickle atti- 
tude for strength and consistency. At any rate, a foreign 
nation may naturally hesitate before staking some of its most 
vital interests upon the will, or perhaps only the life, of one 
man. I have cited the opinions of leading Russian states- 
men, but for my own part I can see no sure foundation for 
Anglo-Russian good-will except a sincere conviction upon each 
side that such would be for its own good and the advantage 
of mankind. I shall be ridiculed by some for attributing any 
weight to the latter consideration in the case of Russia, but closer 
observers will probably support me in the view that the Rus- 
sians, not less than ourselves, are a nation of sentimentalists, and 
even more sensitive than ourselves to broad philosophical ap- 
peals. Between us and them there is not, in my opinion, any 
innate, permanent instinct of hostility. The present popular 
hostility had its roots in the Crimean War (a painful memory to 
every Englishman who has studied its diplomatic origin) and 
has developed of late from causes easy to analyse if space per- 



RUSSIA AND ENGLAND 447 

mitted. Russia has one deep-rooted and ever-present national 
antipathy, probably destined to exhibit itself some day in flam- 
ing colours to the world, but it is not toward England. She 
has sharp suspicions, and indeed anxieties, regarding the aims 
of another nation, but this is not ourselves. If a conflict with 
us were as likely as her newspapers profess to believe, her news- 
papers would never be permitted to chronicle their belief in ex- 
cited language day by day. They fling their sparks into what 
is non-explosive; if it were gunpowder, their pyrotechnics would 
speedily be damped down. Indeed, the hand of authority has 
turned the hose on this fiery press once or twice when there 
has been real danger of a conflagration. 

At the present moment the conditions are perhaps not favour- 
able for a reconciliation and settlement. We should gravely err, 
however, in my opinion, in regarding ourselves as more " iso- 
lated " than others, whether our isolation be " splendid " or the 
reverse. The prestige of our government — of a group of in- 
dividuals — has suffered — not the prestige of the British people.* 
I would go so far as to say that respect, not to say fear, enters 
more often into the feeling of foreign statesmen toward us to- 
day than at any previous period of our modern history. The 
spectre of isolation makes more wakeful couches than ours. If 
the roofs could be lifted off the Foreign Oflices of Europe and a 
glance cast into their recesses, I fancy that the uneasiness pre- 
vailing in unsuspected places would go far toward reassuring 
Britons concerning their own position in the world. Therefore, 
we may await with comparative equanimity the development of 
a rapprochement based upon geography and upon history, upon 
sentiment and upon interest. I believe it will come in time — if 

* "With these obvious gains — development of Imperial purpose, strengthening of 
Imperial ties, broadening and confirming the bases of sea-power, increase of military 
efficiency, demonstrated capacity to send and to sustain 200,000 men on active service, 
for two years, 6,000 miles from home — I do not believe the international prestige of 
Great Britain has sunk in foreign Cabinets, however it may be reckoned in the streets 
and cafe's of foreign cities. "—Captain A. T. Mahan, in the National Review, De- 
cember, 1901, p. 511. 



448 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

not to-day, then to-morrow. When it comes it will show how 
little exaggeration there was in the words of the Tsar Nicholas 
I. to Sir Hamilton Seymour before the terrible blunder of the 
Crimea, " Let England and Russia arrive at an understanding : 
the rest is nothing." And with its inevitable consequences it 
will do more than any other conceivable event in Europe to 
bring about a realisation of the ideal of the Tsar Nicholas IL, 
and to connect in imperishable glory with his name a new secu- 
lar era from which to reckon human progress — A.O.P., Ab orbe 
pacific at 0, *' From the Pacification of the World." 

Postscript. — On the day that the foregoing chapter is passed for press, the Brit- 
ish Government has issued a most momentous Agreement between Great Britain and 
Japan, signed in London on January 30, 1902, relating to the maintenance of the status 
quo in China and Corea. After declaring that the two powers are "entirely uninflu- 
enced by any aggressive tendencies in either country," and defining their common in- 
terests to be " the independence and territorial integrity of the Empire of China and 
the Empire of Corea, and in securing equal opportunities in those countries for the 
commerce and industry of all nations," the Agreement proceeds as follows: 

Article II. — If either Great Britain or Japan, in defence of their respective inter- 
ests as above described, should become involved in war with another Power, the other 
High Contracting Party will maintain a strict neutrality, and use its efforts to prevent 
other Powers from joining in hostilities against its ally. 

Article III. — If in the above event any other Power or Powers should join in 
hostilities against that ally, the other High Contracting Party will come to his assist- 
ance and will conduct the war in common, and make peace in mutual agreement 
with it. 

Article IV. — The High Contracting Parties agree that neither of them will, with- 
out consulting the other, enter into separate arrangements with another Power to the 
prejudice of the interests above described. 



CONCLUSION 



CHAPTER XXVI 

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 

AFTER four journeys made under the most favourable 
conditions for seeing and hearing, after thirty thousand 
miles of travel in Russia — heat and cold^ river and mountain, 
wheat field and cotton field, desert and steppe, empty country 
and crowded capital — what is the upshot of it all, what are the 
dominant superficial impressions left upon one's mind? 

Vastness of area, of course, to begin with. The extent of 
the Russian Empire is almost terrifying. The British Empire 
is enormous, too, but though one may have seen most of it, a 
similar impression of totality is never produced, for it is scat- 
tered over the world and divided by great seas. Russia is a 
whole — you could walk from Archangel to Kushk, and from 
Helsingfors to Vladivostok. The great Russian mystery is 
how all this is governed from the city on the Neva. The world 
has never known such centralisation. 

Again, and similar to this first impression, the apparently 
inexhaustible variety of races. In Central Asia you come upon 
a company of recruits; they are Poles and Finns. A Persian 
carries your baggage at Baku. Your servant in Siberia is a 
Circassian. Your guide at Tiflis is a Mingrelian. The Russian 
officer who took Merv is a Mussulman native — General Ali- 
khanoff: you see — AH Khan -off ? Great Russians and Little 
Russians, Cossacks of the Don, and Cossacks of the Urals, 
Germans and Jews and Greeks — never did so multifarious a 
crowd bear a single name. 

It is obvious, one might conclude, that with so vast and 

449 



4^o ALL THE RUSSIAS 

varied a territory, and so huge and ethnologically variegated 
a population, the natural penalty of centralisation — qui trop 
embrasse mal etreint — must be in process of development. The 
Russian Empire, from its very size and promiscuity, must be 
showing signs of going to pieces? There are thoughtful Rus- 
sians who see danger in this direction, and declare it would 
become acute if Russia took Constantinople. I can only say 
that few such signs are outwardly visible. The sacred person- 
ality of the Tsar and the heavy hands of the authorities in St. 
Petersburg are just as evident and just as inevitable on the 
circumference as at the centre. Russia revolves as smoothly 
as the well-welded fly-wheel. So long as no flaw develops, 
nothing could be more impressive or more powerful than the 
fly-wheel. 

After the vastness of country, the mixture of peoples, and 
the centralisation, comes the impression of strength. Russia is 
indescribably strong. Her strength makes you nervous. It 
is Hke being in the next field, with a golf jacket on, to an angry 
young bull. The bull does not reahse that the gate is there 
to stop him — therefore it will not stop him. Russia walks 
rough-shod over and through obstacles that an older, a more 
civihsed, a more self-conscious country would manoeuvre around 
for half a century. She wants Siberia — she takes it. She wants 
Central Asia — she takes it. She wants Port Arthur — she takes 
it. She wants Manchuria — she is taking it. She wants Persia 
— we shall see. A constitutional Finland is in her way — con- 
stitutional Finland must become a Russian province. Russia 
has suffered of late from an acute financial and commercial 
crisis, intensified by the heavy cost of the rising in China and 
the relief of famine. In view of this, one would expect to see 
all expensive national enterprises postponed, or at least cur- 
tailed. Not at all. Everything proceeds as regularly as though 
a million roubles came floating down the Neva every morning. 
The Great Siberian Railway is being pushed along at all speed. 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 451 

The army is being increased. The navy is being strengthened 
rapidly. Railways are building to the German frontier, to the 
Austrian frontier, in the Southern Caucasus, in Central Asia. 
During the ten years ending in 1899 18,000 miles of railway 
were constructed. In 1899 alone the increase was 2,640 miles. 
And everywhere that Russia reaches she erects handsome and 
permanent buildings — railway stations, cathedrals, administra- 
tive ofifices, barracks. Few provincial towns in Europe or 
America have theatres and museums as fine as those of far-ofif 
Irkutsk and Tiflis. 

The strength of Russia, again, strikes you in the inex- 
haustible masses of her common people. They are physically 
vigorous, they can live on a Chinaman's daily expenditure, 
they are wholly illiterate, wholly superstitious, absolutely obe- 
dient, even to death, to what they are told is the will of the 
Tsar, and they are increasing in numbers at an astounding 
pace.* Recruits may be seen with a band of straw twisted 
round the arm to show them which is their right hand. If a 
couple of hundred thousand of them are needed to increase the 
army, they weep and go. If they must be sacrificed in shoals 
to win a battle, well, they are never missed except each group 
in its own village, and not much there. There are two countries 
in the world where flesh and blood are cheap — China and 
Russia. This is the strength of the one; it will be the strength 
of the other if ever she is organised. I was once discussing 
the relations of England and Russia with a travelled Russian 
officer as we walked through a barrack square. '' Do you 
know why we should always beat you in the end? " asked my 
companion. As he spoke we came to the sentry, who was 

* In the forty-six years from 1851-1897 the population of the Russian Empire increased 
92 per cent. In the last-named year, according to Prince Krapotkin, it was 123,- 
211,113, of which 94 millions were in European Russia proper, and 35 millions in 
the non-Russian provinces of the Empire, divided as follows: Finland, 2f millions; 
Poland, 9I millions; Caucasia, 9f millions; the Kirghiz Steppes, 3I millions; Trans- 
Caspia and Turkestan, 4^ millions ; Siberia, 5f millions. 



4S2 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

standing rigid at the salute. Touching the man upon the 
breast, he continued : '' Because we can lose a hundred thou- 
sand of these without feeling it in any way." The brutal but 
true remark suggests the reflection that a peculiar strength 
belongs to Russia from the fact that the more civilised her 
neighbours become, while she stands still — that is, the greater 
the value they set upon human life in general and the higher 
the respect attaching to the individual man — the stronger in 
proportion does Russia become, for the more dearly in compari- 
son are her rivals ever paying for their counters in the game of 
war. Up to a certain point, in other words, the civilisation of 
Russia's enemies is a millstone about their necks. It must not 
be supposed, however, that this brute force — this cheapness of 
flesh and blood — is the only strong side of military Russia. 
The enthusiasm and confidence of all her officers, and the intelli- 
gence and training of a large number of them, are also striking 
factors. A competent English military critic wrote of the last 
army manoeuvres : " Certainly no class of men could be more 
whole-hearted in their work than the staff officers with whom 
I have come in contact. With a great enthusiasm for the 
routine of their profession, they appear to combine a wide 
interest, not only in military history, but in even the minutest 
details of contemporary war." 

Among the impressions left by study of contemporary 
Russia, however, perhaps the most interesting is that of an 
approaching social change. Hitherto, speaking generally, there 
was no artisan class — no great social stratum below the nobility 
except the illiterate, stupid, kindly, superstitious peasantry. 
The growth of industry is producing such a class — a proletariat. 
Association in large numbers, the discussion of affairs, the 
influence of the fluent speaker, the circulation of the news- 
paper, the use of machinery, residence in towns — all these com- 
bine to confer a certain education. With this rough education 
come new aspirations and the consciousness of ability to realise 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 



453 



them. When a dozen men insist upon something hitherto 
denied them, a policeman may move them on; a hundred men 
may be dispersed by a troop of gendarmes; five hundred men 
may be surrounded by a regiment of Cossacks. But when 
tv^o or three thousand men demand a change, for instance, in 
hours of labour, and not in one town only but in half a dozen 
towns simultaneously, their demand must be considered on its 
merits. This means a new class and a new era in Russia — 
a vital modification of a society hitherto resting upon the two 
pillars of autocracy and theocracy. The '' labour question " 
has been born in Russia. 

In this there is, so far, little of a revolutionary tendency. 
The share of the workmen in the students' disturbances has 
been exaggerated, and the students themselves are without 
quahfications to lead any great movement. Their views are 
but the dreams of disordered intellectual digestion — the workers 
themselves will soon leave them behind. The transition from 
agriculture to industrialism has been so sharp a change that 
some labour diflficulties were inevitable at the outset. The 
Russian peasant does not easily accommodate himself to new 
conditions, nor, on the other hand, does the Russian employer. 
Both have to modify their habits to suit their new environ- 
ment. But this industrial development was both right and 
inevitable in a country possessing the boundless natural re- 
sources of Russia. Perhaps it has been unduly hurried, but 
that is the Russian way — to be very slow in adopting a new 
principle, and then to embody it in act and fact with a rapidity 
that takes away the breath of an observer from less confident 
countries. The Russian authorities have the great advantage 
of beginning with the accumulated experience of other nations. 
Already their attitude toward labour is far more modern and 
emancipated than one would have expected it to be, and 
unless I misread all the signs the future relations of employers 
and employed in Russia will be moulded by the democratic 



454 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

— for want of a better word — conditions which prevail in other 
aspects of Russian life; as exhibited, for instance, in the fact 
that the most powerful Minister the Empire has ever had 
began as a modest employe in a distant provincial railway 
station. I should not be surprised if I Hved to see industrial 
co-partnership, for example, adopted as a primary condition 
of production and distribution in Russia before any other nation 
has advanced so far on the road to the solution of the old 
antagonism of money and men. I know that such a view will 
sound Utopian to many, especially to the " old resident " in 
Russia, but it should be borne in mind that Russia starts in 
this matter from the point we have reached with so much difft- 
culty and at such cost, and that to her a new theory, practical 
or ethical, of social relationships is not the suspected and dis- 
quieting thing it is to us. 



If I have said comparatively Httle in this book about the 
dif^culties and dangers which may beset Russia in the future, 
to warp her line of progress and mar her prosperity, it is be- 
cause most writers seem to me to have dwelt overmuch on 
such topics and to have done less than justice to her achieve- 
ments and her prospects. But I would not have it thought 
that I am blind to such considerations. I am no believer in 
any revolutionary upheaval, though, of course, the possibility of 
social disorder cannot be overlooked, but in spite of her indus- 
trial progress and natural resources, it may be that the financial 
and commercial task she has undertaken will prove too great 
for her strength without foreign financial assistance, that her 
own action may prevent this being given, and that therefore 
a long period of stagnation is before her. I do not think so. 
Indeed, I am convinced to the contrary, but I recognise the 
possibility. She may, of course, fall upon war with an equal 
Power, and this would be to her the greatest of all calamities 
in the present stage of her development. But I am certain 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 455 

that it is her ruler's fixed resolve to '' seek peace and pursue 
it." Certain minor and distinct difficulties undoubtedly await 
her. For example, her nobility as a class is virtually insolvent, 
its great estates gone through mismanagement, its fortunes 
prodigally squandered. Vast areas of land are mortgaged to 
the Agrarian Banks, and many millions of acres have been sold 
under foreclosure. In 1899 these banks had advanced 1,351,- 
518,884 roubles upon landed estates, in number 89,084, and 
in total area over 117,000,000 acres. During the previous 
five years the number of mortgaged estates increased by 22,675, 
and the amount of the mortgages by over 300,000,000 roubles. 
In most of these cases the original owners have no longer a 
rouble of interest in their properties. Societies of peasants are 
in many cases the purchasers, and the State, which has often 
helped the proprietors before, is considering a scheme to assign 
large grants of agricultural land in Siberia to the now landless 
class. But the Siberian peasants will naturally not view this 
process with favour, and the men who have failed to make 
land pay in Russia would hardly succeed better in Siberia. 
Here, then, is a grave problem, the solution of which is not 
apparent. Another is presented by the inabiHty of the Cos- 
sacks, the pioneers and guardians of every Russian advance, 
to adjust their pecuHar feudal institutions to the circumstances 
of modern life, and the consequent decline in their numbers 
and prosperity, and the difficulty in which many of them find 
themselves even to provide the horse and equipment (the State 
furnishing only their rifle and ammunition) w^hich, w4th their 
personal service, is the return they make for their land. Above 
all, there is, of course, the danger that further bad harvests 
may render whole districts finally desolate. Still another dan- 
ger is the corruption and peculation which prevail in many 
public departments among underpaid officials. 

My own conviction, however, is that these and other diffi- 
culties and dangers are small in comparison with Russian 



456 ALL THE RUSSIAS 

strength and resources. No one who remembers the past can 
doubt of her future. A glance at the map of the world is 
almost a sufficient basis for optimistic forecasts concerning her. 
The character and aims of the Tsar himself warrant the hap- 
piest auguries. 

Russia is going ahead — that is my conclusion.* It is foolish 
and unscientific to judge her solely by the foot-rule of our 
older and different civilisation. She should be measured by 
a standard deduced from her own past, her own period of 
existence, and her own racial character. Then it will be seen 
that she stands, so far as virtue and vice go in a national devel- 
opment, very much where the rest of the nations do — that 
only the Judge who is able to cast up very long debit and 
credit accounts, in a very great ledger, can strike a true bal- 
ance. For the rest, she excels most European nations in her 
vivacity of intellectual outlook, in her insouciant courage to 
affront great difficulties, in her freedom from traditional and 
theoretical top-hamper, and in her absolute confidence in her 
own glorious destiny. Beyond this, no nation in the world, 
save perhaps America, can vie with her in lavish wealth of 
natural resources, and when we add that she has never lacked 
the guidance of statesmen of profound sagacity and almost reck- 
less courage, and that her present all-powerful Emperor is a 
man inspired, beyond all question, by lofty ideals, it should be 
clear that the twentieth century must count Russia as one of 
its greatest factors in the movement and development of 
human society. I trust that this series of studies of Russia of 
to-day may have helped a little to bring home these con- 
clusions, in the interests of peace and good-will and com- 
merce, to readers on both sides of the Atlantic. 

* Lord Rosebery, whose insight into foreign affairs is unequalled by that of any 
statesman of our time, has recently written of Russian policy as follows : "There is 
one signal quality which I specially admire in the policy of Russia. It is practically 
unaffected by the life of man or the lapse of time — it moves on, as it were, by its own 
impetus ; it is silent, concentrated, perpetual, and unbroken ; it is, therefore, success- 
ful." — Questions of Empire, p. 27. 



APPENDIX 

I rouble = lOO kopecks. 

I rouble = 2s. 1.3765(1. or £0.1057; £i. = 9.4575 roubles. 

I rouble = $0.5145; $i. = 1.9433 roubles. 

I verst = 0.6628 mile; i mile = 1.5085 verst. 

I poud = 36.1128 tbs. or 0.0161 ton. 

I ton = 62.0278 pouds. 

I kopeck per poud = 1.3117s. per ton. 

I rouble per poud = o.7027d. per tb., or £6.5585 per ton. 

I rouble per poud ^$0.1.425 per tb., or $31.9175 per long ton. 

I kopeck per verst = £0.001595 per mile. 

I rouble per verst = £0.1595 per mile. 

I poud moved one verst = 0.01068 ton moved one mile. 



457 \ 



INDEX 



Abkhasians, 176 

Accidents in works and manufactures, 

precautions against, 381, 382 
Adana, British railway from, to Medi- 
terranean, 259 
Afghanistan — 

Bokharan trade with, future pos- 
sibilities of, 294 
Distance of Moscow from frontier 
of, via Alexandrof-gai, 266, 267 
Herat fortified by, 419, note 
Position of, 270 

Russian relations with, 242; de- 
cline of Russian trade with, 285 
Trans-Caspian water-supply con- 
trolled by, 276 
Agriculture (see also Grain) — 
Bashkirs of, 129 
Black earth districts, 369 
Cereals, production of, 42 ; decrease 

in yield of 1901, 386, note 
Depression in, 369, 386, note; ex- 
penses in mitigation of bad har- 
vests, 366 
Important position of, 368 
Aigun, Convention of, 100 
Aksakof, 352 
Alcohol — 

Poisonous quality of vodka, 356- 

358 
Price of, 358 

State monopoly of, 356-358; hope- 
ful prospects from, 370 
Alexander II., Tsar — 
Apartments of, 15-17 
Chernaieff's disregard of, 280 
Church in commemoration of, 8, 18 
Germany, attitude toward, 396 



Alexander III., Tsar- 
Alcohol monopoly advocated by, 

357 
Germany, attitude toward, 396 
Alexander, King, of Servia, 404 
Alexander, Prince, of Bulgaria, 394 
Alexander Michaelovitch, Grand 

Duke, cited, 264 
Alexandretta - Hit railway scheme, 

263, note t 
Ambassadors, credulity of, 439 
America — 

Fergana, enterprise at, 343 
Foreign capital, conditions for in- 
vestment of, compared with those 
in Russia, 384 
Isolated position of, 388 
Persia, interest in, 441 
Russian attitude toward, 409, 410 
Trans-Alaskan railway project, 154, 
note 
Amer-Darya, Alexandrof-gai route 

from Moscow to, 265-267 
Amer-Darya (Oxus) River — 
Arnold's lines on, 246 
Bridge over, 244, 245 
Amur River — 

Discovery of, by Russians, 98 
Navigation on, 123, 124 
Ananur, 198 
Andijan — 
Cotton district of, 341 ; export from, 

254 

Garrison at, 278 

Prison at, 279 

Railway to, 249 
Annenkof, General, 237 
" Appanages," Imperial, 180, 277 



459 



460 



INDEX 



Apsheron Peninsula, oil areas in, 
224 

Arabs in Trans-Caspia, 275 

Arba, 281 

Archseological treasures, Russian neg- 
lect of, 333 and note 

Area of Russian Empire, vastness of, 

449 
Armenia, massacres in, German atti- 
tude toward, 399 
Armenians — 

Characteristics of, 214 
Trading by, at Kushk Post, 242 
Army — 

Characteristics of, 44 
Length of service in, 89 and note 
Mobilisation of, for diplomatic pur- 
poses, 241, 418 
Pay in, 44 
Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 246, 281 
Asia, see Central Asia, Siberia, etc. 
Askhabad — 

Administrative headquarters at, 
, 272, 278 
Discourtesy at, 231 
Garrison of, 239, 277, 278 
Military headquarters of Turkestan 

at, 277, 278 
Mixture of East and West in, 

238 
Railway from, projected, 218, note 
Trade statistics refused at, 285 
Assignats, policy of, formerly ap- 
proved by M. de Witte, 354 
Astrachan (wool),. 292, 295, 296 
Austria — 
German attitude toward, 407-409 
Internal condition of, 406 
Roumanian convention with, 399, 

404 
Russian relations with, 403 
Servian relations with, 399, 403 

Baghdad railway scheme, 256, 
note t, 257-259, 400, 402, 427 

Baikal, Lake, 119; distance of, from 
Moscow, 140 

"Baikal" (steamer), 119-122 



Baku- 
Petroleum industry at, 219-226, 374, 

375 
Spinning mills at, advantages of, 
343 
Balakhani, oil-wells at, 219-224 
Balkans, political situation in the, 

403-405 
Baltic Provinces, 5, 6 
Baranchiki, 122 
Barracks, pictorial display of duties 

in, 39 
Bashkirs, 129 
Bate has J 301, 302 
Bath at Tiflis, 213 
Batraki, 130 
Batum — 
Military road between Kars and, 

217 
Railway from, profits of, 180 
Beggar and general's wife, anecdote 

of, 38, 39 
Belgian company-promoters, efifect of, 
on Russian industrial condition, 
372 
Bender Jesseh, 256, note t 
Bimetallists, 62 
Bismarck — 

British antipathy of, 433 
Russian policy of, 389, 394, 395 
Blandain, 3 
Blennerhassett, Sir Rowland, quoted, 

407; cited, 428 
Bobeikof, General, 88 
Boer War — 
China, influence on British position 

in, 435 
Foreign policy generally, influence 

on, 258, 437 
German comments on, 432 ; pro- 
posed anti-British coalition, state- 
ment regarding, 434 
India's risk during, 418 
Mahan, Captain, view of, regard- 
ing, 447, note 
Russian general's reference to, 

339 
Bogolinbof, Lieutenant-Colonel, 272 



INDEX 



461 



Bokhara — 

Amir of, 287, 288, 291 

" Ark " of, 305 

Army of, 288, 289 

Aspect of, 246 

Barbarities of, 288 

Bazaar of, 299-301 ; throat-cutting 
in, 247, 288, 290 

Brass work of, 299, 300 

Costume of, 247 

Disease in, 298 

Foreigners disliked in, 297 

Freedom of natives of, 247, 297 

Gold mines near, 295 

Grain imports to, 293 

Hotel d' Europe in, 288 

Jews in, 299 

Khn2 Begi of, 304-307 

Manufactures established at, 294 

Minar Kalan (tower) of, 308 

Mohammedanism in, 303 

Prison of, 309, 313-318 

Revolt in, against Amir, not im- 
probable, 291 

Russian relations with, 287, 288, 
290-292 

Silk and velvet of, 299, 300 

Trade with, 287, 292-296 

Women in, 302, 303 
Borki catastrophe, 352 
Brass work of Bokhara, 299, 300 
Brest-Litovsk fortress, 402, note * 
Brunnhofer, Professor Hermann, 

quoted, 256, note t 
Budget, see under Finance 
Bulgaria, Russian influence in, 398, 

403 
Bunge, M., 352, 357 
Bushire, Russian influence in, 422 
Busra, British shipping at, 425 

Calendar, Russian, 42, 61 
Camels, 191, 192, 239, 273 
Canada, Finnish emigration to, 84 
Capital and labour problem, 30 
Carpets, 273-275 
Caspian, crossing of, 229 
Caucasus (see also Georgia) 



Caucasus — 
Alcohol, sale of, not a State mon- 
opoly in, 358 
Climate of, 179 

Mineral wealth of, 178-180, 376 
Oil-wells in, 219-226 
Political condition of, 213, 217 
Races of, 176 
Railway development in, 217, 218 

and note, 401 
Routes to, 164 
Wine of, 180, 193, 209, 210 
Cellulose industry in Finland, 77 
Central Asia — 

British trade in, decline of, 239, 255, 

293, 299, 440, 441 
Foreign capital, field for, 376 
Foreigners, dislike of, 297, 320, 347 
Garrison of, in ordinary times, 278 
Mussulman rising in, possibility of, 

289 
Railway routes in — direct strategi- 
cal, 265, 266; proposed, 266, 267; 
best commercial, 268; Russian 
and Indian connection, 270, 271 
Trade statistics in, Russian secrecy 
regarding, 285 
Centralisation of Russian Govern- 
ment, 449, 450 
Cereals (see also Grain), production 
of, 42 ; decrease in yield of ( 1901 ) , 
386, note 
Chahel Dokhteran, railway to, 240, 

note 
Charjui (Amu-Darya), Alexandrof- 
gai route from Moscow to, 265- 
267 
Chelyabinsk, 134, 135, 268 
Chernaevc, 248, 280 
Chernaiefi^, General, 279, 280, 283, 284 
China — 

British policy in, 415. 435 
Development of, 416 
German claims in. 396, 398. 434 
Japanese war with, European inter- 
vention after, 396, 410 
Russian anxieties regarding fron- 
tier with, 416 



462 



INDEX 



Chinese — 
First contact of Russians with, 

98 
Irkutsk, in, 149, 150 
Kashgaria, rule in, 347 
Church, Orthodox — 
Position of, 61 

Tolstoy excommunicated by, 56 
Churches in Russia, number and 

wealth of, 9 
Coal — 

Donetz basin, prospects in, 376 
Imports of, 375 

New Russia Company's possessions 
in, 379, 380 
■ Production of, statistics of, 359; 
production in 1892 and 1900, 370, 
note 
Siberia, in, 155 
Cole, Rev, Mr., 313, note 
Commerce, see Trade 
Conolly, Captain Arthur — 
Letter from, quoted, 309 
Mission of, 309 
Murder of, 288, 312, 313, 317 
Convicts — 

Irkutsk, at, 159-161 

License of, in Siberia, 120 

Sakhalin, at, 162 

Siberian railway, employment on, 

119 
Train of, 138, 139 
Cooke, Mr., British Commercial 
Agent in Russia, quoted, 371-373 
Copper in Siberia, 156 
Cossacks, decline in numbers and 

prosperity, 455 
Costliness of living — in Russia, 19 ; 

in Irkutsk, 149 
Cotton — 

Freight charges on, 267 
Goods, statistics of production of, 
359 ; production in 1892 and 1900, 
370, note 
Profit of, in Turkestan, as com- 
pared with wheat, 269 
Route of exports of, from Central 
Asia, 267 



Cotton — 

Spinning and weaving of, 28-31 ; 

profits of, 374 
Trans-Caspian export of, 275 ; ex- 
port from Andijan, 254; from 
Bokhara, 292 
Turkestan, growth of, 30, 31, 341- 

343 
Underclothing of, 21 
Country life in Russia, 65 
Courtesy of Russian oflEicials, 231, 236 
Cranborne, Viscount, quoted, 426, 

443-445, 446 
Crete, German share in blockade of, 

399 
Crimean War- 
Friends, society of, responsibility 

regarding, 93 
Hostile feeling consequent upon, 

447 
Petropavlofsk, Russian success at, 

100 
Salisbury, Lord, view of, regard- 
ing, 414 
Curzon, Lord, quoted, 429, 430 
Custom House officials, 5 
Customs — 
Persian, Russian control of, 422, 423 
Russian, high, 375 ; increase in, dur- 
ing 1901, 369, note 
Czechs, 406-409 

Dariel, Gorge of, 172, 173, 188-190 

Debt, national, see under Finance 

Deportation, 162 and note 

Dervish sect, religious rites of, 290, 
291 

Diplomacy — 

Russian, character of, 414, 438 
Truth-telling and credulity in, 439 

Donetz coal basin, 376 

Douie, Mr., 119 

Dreyfus case, the, Tolstoy's view 
of, 54 

Drinks, bars for, non-existent in St. 
Petersburg, 21 

Driving — 

Charges for, 19, 22 



INDEX 



463 



Driving — 

Georgia, in, 181, 197, 198; cost of, 
181, note 

Method of, 14 
Drunkenness — 

Measures against, 357, 358 

Prevalence of, 21, 43, 44, 50, 356, 
357 
Dual Alliance — 

French view of, 391 

Nature of, 389, 390, 442 

Result of, 390, 391 

Scope of, 390, 393, note 

Tolstoy's view of, 54, note 
Duffield, Mr. W. B., quoted, 407 
Dukhobortsi, tenets of, 41 
Dukhovski, General, 281, 282 
Dushet, 200 

Easter greeting, custom of, 39 
Eastward movement of Russia, 100, 

lOI 

Economic policy of Russia, summary 

of, by M. de Witte, 359-361 
Education — 
Cost of, in Russia, 386, note 
Deficiency in, 2, 19, 39 and note, 40, 

356 
Finland, in, 80, 83 
Tashkent, in, 282, 283 
Ekibas-tuz, coal at, 155 
Elbrutz, Mount, 191 and note 
England, see Great Britain 
Exhibition of British Arts and Indus- 
tries to be held in St. Petersburg, 
376, note 
Exiles to Siberia, number of, in 1898, 

161 
Export of iron, 371 
Eydtkuhnen, 3 

Famines in Russia, 42, 369 
Fashoda incident, Russian influence 

regarding, 391 
Faure, President Felix, visit of, to 

Russia, 390 
Ferdinand, Archduke, 408 
Ferdinand, Prince, of Bulgaria, 398 



Fergana — 
Administrative centre of, 278, 341 
American enterprise in, 343 
Revolt at, 290, 343 
Fever in Central Asia, 240-242, 2yy 
Finance — 
Budget — 

Character of, 367, 368 
French compared with, 350 
Report on Budget of 1902, by M. 

de Witte, 386, note 
Surplus in, 364, 366 
Customs duties, high, 375 ; increase 

in, during 1901, 369, note 
Debt, national — 
Amount of, 363 
Decrease in, during last ten 

years, 364, 386, note 
Interest on, 366 
Security for, 364, 366 
Foreign capital — 

Baku petroleum industry due to, 

374, 375 
Conditions afforded to invest- 
ment of, 384, 385 and note 
Openings for, 374, 376 
Russian attitude toward, 360, 361 
Loans — 

France, floated in, 391 

Official assurances regarding, 366, 

note 
Reasons for, 365, 366, note 
Redemption of, 364, 365 and notes 
Ministry of — 
de Witte, M., appointed to, 354 
Scope of work of, 362 
Misconceptions regarding, 363, ■>,6y, 

384 
Revenue — 
Alcohol, from sale of, 358 
Forests, mines, and agricultural 

property, from, 349, 364 
Peasants' land, from, 349, 364; 
arrears of rent written off, 
369 
Railways, from, 350, 364, 367 and 
note * 
Taxes, 382 



464 



INDEX 



Finance — 

Taxes — 
Trustworthiness of Russian State, 
384 
Finland — 

Alcohol, sale of, prohibited, 65, 80 

Annexation of, by Russia, possi- 
bility of, 94, 95 

Area of, 74 

Cheapness of living in, 91 

Civilisation of, 64 

Climate of, 64, 74, 79 

Constitution of, terms of, 86, 87 

Exports of, 74, 'J'] 

Helsingfors, 68, 69, 71-73 

Landscape in, 74, 75 

Languages of, 67 

Military regulations for, 88, 89 and 
note 

Poetry of, 70 

Population of, 74 

Races in, 79 

Rapids of, 76 

Religions of, 83 

Russia, relations with, 84-93 

Saima Canal, 67 

Savings in, 83 

Schools in, 80, 83 

Sveaborg, 71 

Tariff of, 91 and note 

Towns in, 83 

Viborg, 67 

Women, position of, 80 

Wood-pulp industry of, 76-78 
Finns — 

Characteristics of, 64, 79 

Customs of, 80 

Devotion of, to Alexander IL, 71 

Emigration of, to United States and 
Canada, 84 

Maritime ability of, 79 

Types of, 79, 88 
Foley, Mr. (Indian Tea Association 
representative), quoted, 423, 424 
Food — 

Peasants, of, 44 

Restaurants, in, 21 
Force majeure sanction, 90 



Ford, Mr. Alexander Hume, quoted, 

367, note t, 374 
Foreign capital — 
Baku petroleum industry due to, 

374, 375 
Conditions afforded to investment 

of, 384, 385 and note 
Openings for, 374, 376 
Russian attitude toward, 360, 361 
Foresight of Russian methods, 22, 

231, 237, 282, 334 
Forests — 
Foreign capital, opening for, 376 
Revenue from, 349, 364 
France — 
British relations with, 432 
Budget of — arrangement of, 368 and 

note ; deficit in, 373, 392, note 
German attitude toward, 391, 392 
Mitylene, seizure of, 393, note 
Persian Gulf, acquisition of coaling 
station on, prevented by Great 
Britain, 427 
Russia — 
Loans to, 366, note, 391 
Relations with, 54, note, 389-391 
Tariff of, 442 
Frontier-post between Europe and 

Asia, 132 
Frontiers of Russia, 388, 416 
Furnished rooms (nomera) — at Tash- 
kent, 281 ; at Samarkand, 335 

Galicia, Russian railways toward, 
402, note * 

Gatchina, 7 

Genghiz Khan, 174, 320 

Geok Tepe, 235-237 

Georgia (see also Caucasus) — 

Military road in, 181, 182, 187, 188, 

196-198 
Political condition of, 214-217 
Russian acquisition of, 174 
Women of, 209 

Germany — 

Austria, attitude toward, 407-409 
Baghdad railway scheme of, 256, 
note t, 257-259, 400, 402, 427 



INDEX 



465 



Germany — 

British attitude toward, 394, 397, 
398, 432, 435, 445; German atti- 
tude toward Great Britain, 432, 
435 ; British understanding with, 
402, note t, 446, note 
China, claims in, 396, 398, 434 
Financial condition of, 2>7Z 5 finan- 
cial relations with Russia, 354, 

355 

France, attitude toward, 391, 392 

Frontier of, 3 

Los von Rom movement in, 408 

Naval development of, 433 

Pan-Germanism, 407-409 

Persia, aims in, 445, 446; railway 
scheme in, 256, note t, 257-259, 
261, 262 

Russia — 
Attitude of, 400, 401 and note, 414 
Attitude toward, 435 
Exports to, 376 
Relations with, 394-398, 400-402 

Turkey — 
Assistance to, in Greek War, 399 
Policy regarding, 389 
Goats, 183, 184, 248 
Gold mines — 

Bokhara, near, 295 

Illicit buying of gold at Irkutsk, 150 

Mongolian, 415 

Output of, in Russia in ten years, 
375 

Siberian, 150-152, 155, 375 
Gold standard, reforms of M. de 

Witte regarding, 355, 356 
Goremykin, General, Governor-Gen- 
eral of Irkutsk Government, 119, 
157 
Grain — 

Central Asian imports of, 269, 293 

Elevator for, at Novorossisk, 378 

Low price of wheat in Eastern Rus- 
sia, 129 

Production of, 42 ; decrease in yield 
of (1901), 386, note 

Siberian production of, 154 ; prod- 
uct during 1900, 370 



Great Britain — 
Afghanistan secured from Russia 

by, 277 
Alcoholic consumption in, compared 

with that of Russia, 356 
Baghdad railway scheme subject to 
consent of, 402; understanding 
regarding, 402, note, 446, note 
Central Asian trade of, decline in, 

239, 255, 293, 299, 440, 441 
China, policy regarding, 415, 435 
Consuls of, attitude of Russians 

toward, 338, 339 
Exhibition of British Arts and In- 
dustries to be held in St. Peters- 
burg, 376, note 
Foreign policy of — 
Boer War's influence on, 258, 

435, 437 
Russian view of, 414, 437 
France, relations with, 432 
German attitude toward, 432, 435 ; 
British attitude toward Germany, 
394, 397, 398, 432, 435, 445 
Merchants' price lists from, 2>77, 

note * 
Persia, see that title 
Quetta-Siestan railway project of, 

264, 424 
Russia — 
Attitude of, 385, note, 414, 418 
Entente with — possibility of, 413; 
form of, 440; importance of, 
448 
Overtures from, 262, 263, 385, 

note 
Suspicion against, 414 
Greece, Turkish war with. 399 
Grey, Sir Edward, quoted, 446 
Griffin, Sir Lepel, quoted, 265, note 
Grover, Captain, 311 
Growth of industry in Russia, 452 

Hanauer, Mr., Vice-Consul-General, 

quoted, Z73 
Handy, Mr., 119 
Heather in Russia, 6 
Helsingfors, 68, 69, 71-73, 84 



466 



INDEX 



Herat, 419 and note 
Hilkoff, Prince, 234 
Horse, extinction of Turcoman breed 

of, 275 
Hughes, John, 378, 384 

Ignatieff, M., 288 

Illiteracy in Russia, 2, 19, 39, 40, 356 

India — 

Diplomatic value of, to Russia, 241, 
418 

Hours' distance of, from London, 
if railway connection between 
Kushkinski Post and New Cha- 
man, 271 

Responsibilities in administration 
of, 419 

Russian invasion of — 
Expectations as to, 416 
Opportunity for, 418 
Russian view of, 417 
Industrial development of Russia — 

Drawbacks of, 50 

Effect of, 44 

Importance of, 32 

Outlook of, 374 

Statistics of, 359, 370, note 

Tolstoy's view of, 52 
Irakli the Great, 174 
Irkutsk- 
Costliness of living in, 149 

Crime in, 148 

Founding of, 98 

Gold laboratory in, 150, 151 

Goremykin, General, Governor- 
General of, 119, 157 

Importance of, 146-148 

Journey to, from Moscow, time of, 
114; time-table of, 115; cost of, 
116 

Mountainous district of, 113, 141 

Population of, 146 

Prison of, 157-161 
Iron — 

Belgian company swindles regard- 
ing, 372 

Exports of, 371 

Imports of, 371, 375 



Iron — 

New Russia Company's works, 379- 
384 

Outlook of the industry, 374 

Price of goods fixed by Govern- 
ment, 383 

Production of, statistics regarding, 
359 ; production in 1892 and 1900, 
370, note 

Tests imposed on manufacturers of, 
by Government, 382, 383 

Ural Mountains rich in, 133 ; Ural 
works, 156 
Isolation not peculiar to Great Brit- 
ain, 447 

Japan — 

Chinese War, European interven- 
tion after, 396, 410 
Isolated position of, 388 
Korea, position in, 411 
Manchuria exclusion of trade, atti- 
tude toward, 415 
Naval and military strength of, 

410 
Russian overtures to, 411 
Jasper, 134 
Jews — 

Bokhara, in, 299 
Trans-Caspia, in, 275 
Wolff, Rev. Dr. Joseph — quoted, 
297, 313; career of, 310-313 
Joint-stock companies, Russian, 377 
Journal of Financial Statistics cited, 

349, note 
Journey to St. Petersburg, 2-8; to 
Irkutsk, 102-116; to Tashkent, 
228-249 

Kabul, area of, 294 

Kamchatka, conquest of, 98 

Kamenoi, 13 

Kapnist, Count Vladimir, 263 

Karachi, distance of, from London, 
if railway connection between 
Kushkinski Post and New Cha- 
man, 271 

Karakul, 292, 295, 296 



INDEX 



467 



Kars — 

Military road between Batum and, 
217 

Railway to, 203 
Kasbek, Mount, 173, 191 and note, 

196 
Kashgar, telegraph to, via Vernoye, 

347 
Kashgaria — 

Chinese rule in, 347 

Russian line of expansion through, 
348 
Katkof, M., 351 
Kazalinsk, 292 
Khabarofsk — 

Founding of, 98 

Railway from, to Vladivostok, 123 
Khaidalovo, 124 

Khaketia, wine of, 180, 209, 210 
Kharbin, railway from, to Port Ar- 
thur, 124, note, 125 
Khartum (near Andijan), 344 
Khorassan — 

Russian relations with, 255, 277 

Trans-Caspian trade with, 294 
Kiakhta, possible route of Siberian 

railway through, 125 
Kiao-chao, seizure of, 396 
Kirghiz — 

Costume of, 280 

District of, 275 

Travellers, 344, 345 

Villages of, 237 
Kizil Arvat, 277 

Koenitzer & Co., Messrs., 165, 166 
Kokand, 341 
Kolymsk, 161 
Kopek, value of, 268 
Kopet Dagh Mountains, 275 
Korea, situation in, 411 
Kornilov, activity of, in Persian Gulf, 

264, 421 
Koweit — 

Demonstration at, 260 

Flag incident at, 261, note 

German aims regarding, 259 

Tripoli railway to, scheme of, 263 
and note % 



Kran (Persian coin), 279 
Krapotkin, Prince, quoted, 452, note 
Krasnovodsk, 230, 231, 234; route 

from (journey and distances), to 

Tashkent, 249 
Kremlin, the, 24, 25, 27, 32 
Krivei-rog, 379, 380 
Kuropatkin, General, 88, 236 
Kushk, distance of, from Moscow 

via Alexandrof-gai, 266, 267 
Kushkinski Post — 
Diplomatic demonstrations at, 418 
Garrison life at, 242, 243 
Railway to, 240 ; railway to, from 

Indian frontier, suggested, 270, 

271 

Labour — 

Capital and, problem of, 30 
Question, birth of, 453 
Supply of, reforms of M. de Witte 
regarding, 361, 362 
Land — 

Imperial ("appanages"), 180, 277 

Peasants, revenue from, 349, 364; 

arrears of rent written off, 

369 
Tax on, in Turkestan, 342 
Landscape — 
Finnish, 74, 75 
Russian, 6, 7, 167 
Siberian, 135-138, 140, 141 
Trans-Caspian, 234, 235, 243 
Ural mountain district, 131 
Larovary, General, 405 
Leroy-Beaulieu, M. Paul, quoted, 368, 

note 
Lesghians, 176, 207 
Lessar, M., speed of journey to Vla- 
divostok by, 124, note 
Levey, Mr. George Collins, Secretary 
for Exhibition of British Arts 
and Industries to be held in St. 
Petersburg, 2>77, ^^ote 
Li Hung-chang, 415 
Listvenitchnaya, crime in, 120 
Loans, see under Finance 
Lodz, 376, note 



468 

Long, R. E. C, cited, 256, note * 
Lueger, Dr., cited, 408 



INDEX 



Machines, imports of, 375 
Mahan, Captain, quoted — 

American foreign policy, on, 441 
Great Britain, foreign opinions re- 
garding, on, 447, note 
Persian Gulf, on, 429, 430 
Malachite, 134 
Manchuria — 
Area of, 430 

Japanese influence in, 411, 412 
Railway through, 123-125 
Russian annexation of, 396, 415 
Manganese industry, 179, 376 
Manufactures, Moscow the centre of, 

28 
" March of the Biorneborgers, The," 

70 
Margelan, 278, 341 
Maruchak, railway to, building, 240, 

note 
Meal times, Russian indefiniteness re- 
garding, no 
Mendeleyef, Professor, cited, 374 
Mercantile marine, contemplated de- 
velopment of, 362 
Merv— 

Acquisition of, by Russia, 239 
Bokhara, attitude toward, 292 
Fever prevalent at, 240, 241, 277 
Garrison at, 278 

Moscow, distance from, via Alex- 
androf-gai, 266 ; via Orenburg- 
Tashkent, 267 
Railway from, to Kushk (Murghab 
branch), 240 and note, 241, 243, 
295 ; Russian statement regard- 
ing, 419, note 
Water-supply of, controlled by Af- 
ghanistan, 276 
Meshed— 

Importance of, 238 
Railway to, projected, 218, note 
Metric system, contemplated intro- 
duction of, 362 
Michael, Tsar, house of, 45 



Michell, Mr. J., Consul-General, 

quoted, 117, note, 370 
Military service, see Army 
Minerals — 
Extraction and production of, sta- 
tistics of, 359 
Wealth in, 32, 364, 374-376 
Mines (see also Gold Mines), State 

profit from, 349 
Mintiuba, revolt at, 279 
Misovaya, 122 

Mitylene, French seizure of, 393, note 
Mohammedanism in Bokhara, 289, 

303 
Mongolia — 
Area of, 430 
Russian control of, 415 
Montenegro, Russian relations with, 

389, 399, 404 
Morchansk, 129, 130 
Mortgaged estates in Russia, 455 
Moscow — 

Amu-Darya, direct route to, via 
Alexandrof-gai, 265-267 

Bokharan trade with, 296, 299 

Cannon and bell of, 25, 26 

Chinese city in, 28, 45 

Churches of, 24 

Commercial activity, 28, 296 

Fergana, distance from, 267 

Kremlin, the, 24, 25, 27, 32 

Merv, distance from, via Alexan- 
drof-gai, 266; via Orenburg- 
Tashkent route, 267 

Population of, 24 

Siberian Railway terminus in, 23, 
102 
Moser, M., quoted, 308 
Mtskhet, 200, 201 
Mujik, see Peasants 
Muravief, Count, 438 
Muravief, General, 99, 100 
Murghab Railway — 

Diplomatic value of, 241 

Future possibilities for, 243 

Route of, 240 and note 

Russian statement as to, 419, note 

Secrecy regarding, 240 



INDEX 



469 



Murghab Railway — 

Trade route by, possible develop- 
ment of, 295 

Murghab River, 240, note, 276 

Murray, Colonel, Consul-General at 
Warsaw, quoted, 377, note * 

Mussulmans in Bokhara, 289, 303 



Osh— 

Aspect of, 346 

Foreigners disliked in, 347 

Governor of, 347 
Oxus (Amu-Darya) River — 

Arnold's lines on, 246 

Bridge over, 244, 245 



Navy — 

German, development of, 433 
Russian, expenditure on, 366 

Nerchinsk, treaty of, 98 

Neva River — 
Dungeons on, 10 
Floods of, 14, 15 
Shallowness of, 14 

New Russia Company, Ltd., 378-384 

Nicholas II., Tsar — 

de Witte, M., confidence in, 362, 385 
Peace desired by, 390, 417, 448 
Siberian Railway, interest in, 113, 
124, note 

Nicholas, Prince, of Montenegro, 399, 
404 

Nikholsk, 125 

Nikolaiefsk, founding of, 100 

Nomera (furnished apartments) — at 
Tashkent, 281 ; at Samarkand, 
335 

Novogeorgievsk fortress, 402, note * 

Novorossisk, 378 

" Numbers," 281, 335 

Odessa — 

de Witte, M., connection with, 351, 
352 

Trains snowed up near, 43 
Oil, see Petroleum 
Oil-worked steamers, 168, 169 
Omsk, 142, 145, 146 
Onions and mutton, 193 
Open-Door policy in Persia, 440, 442 
Orenburg-Tashkent railway project, 

266, 267 
Orsk, 268 
Osh— 

Approach to, 343, 345 



Pan-Germanism, 407-409 
Pan-Islamism, 289-291 
Pan-Slavism, 396, 409 
Paper manufacture in Finland, 77 
Paper money, withdrawal of large 

proportion of, 356 
Passports — 

Forging of, 148, 158 
Peasants, for, 361, 362 
Peace Conference, 38 
Peasants — 
Characteristics of, see Russians 
Condition of, 42, 128, 369 
Passports for, 361, 362 
Relief works for, 369 
Rent paid to the State by, 349, 364; 
arrears of, written off, 369 
Penjdeh, railway to Maruchak 

through, 240, note 
Persia — 
American interest in, 441 
Commercial freedom in, essential, 

440, 442 
Customs, Russian control of, 422, 

423 
Division of north and south for po- 
litical control, Russian view of, 
421, 441, fiote 
German railway scheme in, 257- 
259, 400, 402, 427; terminus for, 
445 
Great Britain — 

Commercial disabilities of, 424; 

trade with, in 1901, 425, note 
Gunboats of, action by, 427 
Interests of, 424, 443, 444 
Imperial Bank of, 422, 425 
Loans to, 422, 423, note 
Military possibilities in, 428 



470 



INDEX 



Persia — 
Russia — 
Aim of, for outlet on Persian 
Gulf, 256, 257, 264, 400, 401, 
420 ; suggested offer of com- 
mercial outlet for, 428, 431 
Influence of, 264, 422, 423 
Trade with, 285, 422 
Silver coins of, in Trans-Caspia, 279 
Status quo in, maintenance of, 426, 

427, 443, 444, 445 
Tariff of, for Russian goods, 422 
Trade with, 294, 425, note 
_ Trans-Caspian water basin in, 276 
Persian lamb (wool), 292, 295, 296 
Peter the Great — 
Cottage of;, 10 
Effigy of, 13 
Influence of, 22 
Siberian affairs in time of, 99 
Petroleum industry — 
Baku, at, 179, 374, 375 
Caucasus district, prospect in, 178, 

179 
Fountains, 223, 225 
Output of oil compared with that 

of United States, 375 
Statistics of, 224-226, 359, 370 
Working of wells, 220-223 
Petropavlofsk, 100 
Pictorial representation, 19, 39 
Pig-iron, statistics of production of, 

359 
Police, Russian, 18; scarcity of, in 

Siberia, 120, 149 
Political prisoners, 161 
Population of Russian Empire, 451, 

note 
Port Arthur- 
Acquisition of, 100, 396 
Railway to, from Kharbin, 124, 

note, 125 
Route to, from United States via 
Siberia, 125 
Poud, equivalent of, 268, 269, 342 
Poverty in Russia, 42, 128, 369 
Prisoners, political, 161 
Prisons — 
Andijan, at, 279 



Prisons — 

Bokhara, at, 309, 313-318 

Irkutsk, at, 157-161 

Tashkent, at, 279 
Protection, educational, M. de Witte 

an advocate of, 354, 359-361, 377 
" Protection " by person of rank, 36 
Pskov, 7 
Pulp industry in Finland, 76-78 



QuETTA-SiESTAN railway project, 264, 
424 

Races, variety of, in Russian Empire, 

449 
Rails, tests imposed on manufact- 
urers of, by Government, 382 
Railways — 

Advances to, loans to meet, 365, 
366 and note 

Alexandretta - Hit scheme, 263, 
note % 

Alexaridrof-gai route to Merv sug- 
gested, 265-267 

Baghdad scheme of Germany, 256, 
note t, 257-259, 400, 402, 427; pro- 
posed route of, 258, 259 

Caucasian lines, 217, 218 and note, 
401 

Central Asia, direct route for Rus- 
sian line in, 265, 266; proposed 
route, 266, 267; best commercial 
route, 268; Russian and Indian 
connection, 270, 271 

Construction of new lines, 451 

de Witte, M., appointed Director 
of, 353 

Fares on, 116, 117 

Freight traffic, increase in. 367 

Galician frontier, toward, 402, 
note * 

Gauge of, 5 

Indian and Russian connection sug- 
gested, 270, 271 

Investment in. 410 

Isolated route of, in Russia, 43 

Murghab branch, see Murghab 
Railway 



INDEX 



471 



Railways — 
Odessa, M. de Witte's former con- 
nection with, 352 
Orenburg-Tashkent project, 266, 

267 
Passenger traffic, increase in, 367 
Persia, Russian monopoly in, 35 
Quetta-Siestan project, 264, 424 
Siberian, see under Siberia 
State- 
Extent of, 350, 364, 366 
Revenue from, 364, 367 and 
note * 
Tashkent-Omsk route, 268 
Trans- Alaskan project, 154, note 
Trans-Caspian, see that title 
Travelling by {see also under Sibe- 
ria), 5, 8 
Tripoli-Koweit scheme, 263 and 
note * 
Rank in Russia, 36 
Rawlinson, Sir Henry, quoted, 416 
Rechnitzer, Mr. Ernest, railway 

scheme of, 263, note X 
Recruits, illiteracy of, in Russian 

army, 451 
Reeds, 136, 137 
Reformers, 62 
Relief works, 369 

Religious fanaticism in Russia, 40, 41 
Renton, Mr., 119 

Resht, road from, to Tehran, 264, 422 
Restaurants, 21 
Revenue, see under Finance 
Road-making as relief works, 369 
Romanoff — 

Establishment of, as rulers, 99 
Tombs of, 24, 45 
Rosebery, Lord, quoted, 456, note 
Roshan, cession of, to Bokhara, 

292 
Rouble — equivalent value of, 118, 
note; M. de Witte's reforms re- 
garding, 354-356 
Roumania — 

Austria, convention with, 399, 404 
Russia, relations with, 403 
Runeberg, statue of, 69 



Russia, difficulties and dangers of, 

454 
Russian Empire, strength of, 450 

Vastness of, 449 
Russian staff officers, efficiency of, 452 
Russians, characteristics of — 

Drunkenness, 21, 43, 44, 50, 356, 357 

Geniality, 21, 44, 356 

Idealism, 47, 62 

Superstition and religious fanati- 
cism, 40, 44, 130 

Time, inexact sense of, 109 

Untruthfulness, 44 

Saima Canal, 67 
St. Petersburg — 

Bars and saloons non-existent in, 
21 

Character of, 8, 9 

Churches of, 9, 10 

Costliness of living in, 19 

Exhibition of British Arts and In- 
dustries in, 376, note 

Floods in, 15 

Hotels in, 19 

Island Parks of, 13, 14 

Police of, 18 

Shops in, 19 

Unhealthiness of, 15 
Sakhalin, 162 
Salisbury, the Marquess of — 

China, despatch regarding German 
action in, 434 ; Anglo-German 
Convention regarding China con- 
cluded by, 435 

Pro-Turkish policy, opinion of, 414 

Russian assurance as to Persia, 
despatch regarding, 425 
Samara, 130, 164, 165 
Samarkand — 

Aspect of, 248 

Batchas of, 301 

Bazaar of, 319 

Discourtesy of Governor of, 335 

Foreigners disliked in, 320 

Garrison at, 278 

Industries of, 335 

Manuscripts of, 320 



472 



INDEX 



Samarkand — 

Military club at, 335-338 

Mosque of the Shah Zindah at, 331- 

333 
Nomera at, 335 
Prosperity of, 291 
Rigistan of, 320-323 
Russian quarter of, 333-33S 
Saratof, 167-169; suggested railway 
via Alexandrof-gai to Amu-Dar- 
ya from, 265-267 
Sarts, 297 ; wages of, 343 
Scenery, see Landscape 
Schliissenburg, 10 
Sea outlets, Russian desire for, loi, 

256, 421 
Seistan, project of railway to, from 

Quetta, 264, 424 
Servia — 
Austrian relations with, 399, 403 
Russia, relations with, 399 ; Russian 
attitude toward, 403, 404 
Shamyl, 175 

Shan-tung, German claim to, 396 
Sheep, 182-186 

Shignan, cession of, to Bokhara, 292 
Shilka River, navigation on, 123, 124 
Shops, pictorial advertisements of, 19, 

39 
Siberia {for rivers, towns, etc., see 
their titles) — 
Agricultural production of, 154; de- 
velopment of agriculture, 370 
Alcohol, sale of, not a State monop- 
oly in, 358 
Area of, 139 
Climate of, 118 
Copper mines in, 156 
Crime in, 120, 148, 162 
Deforestation in, 141 
Emigrants to, 135, 139, 156 
Exiles to, 139 ; number of, in 1898, 

161 
Export of butter from, in 1900, 370 
First expedition to, 97 
Gold mining in, 150-152, i55, 375 
Journey to, and through, 127-141 
Muravief's work in, 99, 100 



Siberia — 

Nature of country, 2 
Peasants of, 455 
Police in, scarcity of, 120, 149 
Siberia, Railway of — 
Beginning of, 100, no 
Bridges of, 113 
Caravan road through Kiakhta a 

possible route for, 125 
Construction of, 113 
Cost of, 126 ; funds for, 364, 366 
Engines on, 103 
Fares on, 116, 117 
Freight charges on, 153, 154 
Length of, 125 
Light rails on, 117 
Manchurian section of, 123-125 
Opinions regarding, 153 
Rate of speed on, 103, 106, 116, 141 
Stations on, 118; buffets, 118, 138, 

142, 143 
Traffic on, iiy and note, 118 
Trains on — daily, 102 ; weekly train 

de luxe, 102-110, 127, 130 
Trans-Caspian Railway compared 
with — in comfort, 232; in speed, 
250 ; in importance, 254 
Watchers on, 118, 119 
Waterways of, 140 
Silk of Bokhara, 300 
Singing boys of Bokhara and Samar- 
kand, 301, 302 
Sipiagin, M., Inspector-General of 

Irkutsk prison, 160, 161 
Siromyatnikof, M., cited, 414 
Skobelef, General, 236 
Skoptsi sect, 40, 130 
Smuggling, 66 
Social change in modern Russia, 

452 
Social fabric, characteristics of, 38, 

39, 45 
Soldiers — 

Characteristics of, 44 
Length of service of, 89 and note 
Mobilisation of, for diplomatic pur- 
poses, 241, 418 
Pay of, 44 



INDEX 



473 



Staal, M. de, cited, 425 

Stamp, mourning, issued in Finland, 

79, 85 
Statistics of increase of population in 
Russia, 451, note 
Of railv/ay construction in Russia, 
451 
Steel- 
Imports of, 375 

Production of, statistics of, 359; 
production in 1892 and 1900, 370, 
note 
Stevens, Mr. Patrick, British Consul 

at Batum, quoted, 180 
Stoddart, Colonel — 

Indiscretions of, 306, 309 
Murder of, 288, 312, 313, 317 
Stretensk, railway route from Miso- 

vaya to, 123 
Students, Russian — 
Disturbances of, 453 
Theoretical views of, 62 
Uniforms worn by, 20 
Sugar, depots for, at Bokhara, 293 
Superstition, 40, 44, 130 
Sveaborg, 71 
Sweden — 
Language of, spoken in Finland, 

67 
Russia, attitude toward, 388, note 



Taiga, 140, 145 
Tajiks, 280 

Tamara, Queen, 174, 190 
Tamerlane, tomb of, 320, 328, 329, 333 
and note; mausoleum of his wife, 

329-331, Z2,Z 
Tashkent — 

Bokhara, attitude toward, 292 

Citadel of, 283, 284 

Furnished rooms in, 281 

Garrison at, 278, 282 

Governor-General of Turkestan res- 
ident at, 278 

Military club in, 281 

Native quarter of. 283, 284 

Observatory at, 282 



Tashkent — 

Orenburg-Tashkent railway project, 
266, 267 

Population of, 280, 281 

Prison at, 279 

Realschule at, 282, 283 

Route (journey and distances) to, 
from Krasnovodsk, 249 

Russian quarter of, 281 

Seizure of, 279, 280 

Shops of, 281 
Tatars, 207 

Tatistcheff, M., quoted, 385, note 
Taxes, 382 

Tea plantations at Batum, 180 
Tehran, road to, from Resht, 264, 422 
Tiflis— 

Bath of, 213 

Bazaar of, 205 

Buildings of, 204 

Characteristics of, 202 

Costumes of, 207-209 

de Witte, M., educated at, 351 

Hotel de Londres, 177, 204 

Importance of, 203 

Languages of, 178, 202, 205 

Old quarter of, 206 
Timber {see also Wood) — 

Barges of, on the Volga, 168 

Price of, increasing, 376 

Siberian port for, 141 
Timur, see Tamerlane 
Tobolsk, 98 
Tolstoy, Leo, Count — 

Appearance of, 51, 52 

Emigration of Dukhobortsi assisted 
by, 41 

Excommunication of, 56-61 

Home of, 49, 50 

Influence of, 61 

Opinions of, 52-58, 61 

Title of, 48 

Visit to, 49-62 
Tolstoy, Countess, protest of, to Holy 

Synod, 58 ; reply to, 60 
Tomsk, 145 
Treaties — 

Aigun, 100 



474 



INDEX 



Treaties — 

' Anglo-German Convention regard- 
ing China, 435 ; regarding Per- 
sian Gulf, 446, note 

Berlin, 440, note 

Nerchinsk, 98 
Trade — 

Afghanistan, with, decline in, 285 ; 
future possibilities of, 294 

Bokhara, with, 287, 292-296 

British, in Central Asia, decline of, 
239, 255, 293, 299, 440, 441 ; British 
merchants' price lists, 377, note * 

Persia, with, 285, 294, 425, note 

Price of iron goods fixed by Gov- 
ernment, 383 

Statistics of, Russian secrecy re- 
garding, 285 

Tests imposed by Government, 382, 
383 
Trans-Caspia — 

Cotton export of, 275 ; export from 
Audi j an, 254; from Bokhara, 292 

Extent of, 272 

Grain imports to, 293 

Population of, 273, 275 

Scenery of, 234, 235, 243 

Water basin of, 276 
Trans-Caspian Railway — 

Boat connection with, 234 

Construction of, time employed in, 
250 

Fever in district of, 240, 277 

Financial success of, 253, 255, 285 

First class non-existent on, 232 

Map of, 252 

Murghab branch of, see Murghab 
Railway 

Rate of speed on, 249, 250 

Revenue of, 180 

Sand drifts on, 243, 244 

Siberian Railway compared with — 
in comfort, 252; in speed, 250; in 
importance, 254 

Starting-point of, 230 

Trade facilities effected by, 292, 294, 
296 

Trains and post trains on, 232, 233 



Trees in Russia, 6 
Tripoli — 

Military service obligation accepted 
by, 290 

Railway between Koweit and, pro- 
jected, 263 and note t 
Truth-telling in diplomacy, 438, 439 
Tsar, peasant worship of, 451 
Tsaritsin, 169 
Tsars — 

Coronation of, 27, 32-36 

Influence of, increasing, :^7, 38, 451 

Sentiment for, 35, 36, 37, note 

Titles of, 35 

Tombs of, 10 
Tula, 47 

Turbat, Russian force at, 34 
Turkestan — 

Cotton product of, 30, 31, 269, 341- 
343 

Imports and exports of, 254 

Land-tax in, 342 

Military headquarters of, 278 
Turkey — 

Decay of, 398 

French claim against, 393, note 

German relations with, 258-261, 389, 
399-401 

Mollahs from, in Trans-Caspia, 290 

Russian understanding with, as to 
railways in Asiatic Turkey, 427 

Sultan of, Moslem attitude toward, 
289 
Turkomans — 

Art of, 273 

Carpets of, 273-275 

Costume of, 246, 247 

Horses of, 275 

Russian conquest of, 236, 237, 297 
Tweedy, Mr., oil wells of, 219-224 



Underclothing, 21, 22 

Uniforms, 20 

United States, see America 

University students — 
Theoretical views of, 62 
Uniforms worn by, 20 



INDEX 



475 



Ural Mountains — 

Iron works in, 156 

Products of, 133, 374, 376 

Scenery of, 130 
Urjumka, 132 
Usofka, 378-383 
Uzum-Ada, 230 

Vambery, Arminius, 228 
Velvet of Bokhara, 300 
Vermin — 

Murder by, 228, 288, 312, 313, 317 

Prevalence of, 44, 233 
Versts, equivalent of, 118, note 
Viborg, 67 

Vierzhbolovo (Wirballen), 4 
Villages in Russia, poverty of, 42, 43, 

128 
Vilna, 7 

Vishnegradski, M., 353, 354, 357 
Vladikavkaz, 170, 171, 181 
Vladimir Alexandrovitch, Grand 

Duke, 88 
Vladivostok — 

Distance to, from Moscow, 123 

Founding of, 100 
Volga River — 

Bridge over, 130 

Journey down, 164-170 

Navigation of, 170, note 

Scenery of, 167 

Traffic on, 168 
von Beck, Baron, 405 
von Waldersee, Count, leadership of 
allied forces secured for, 397, 398, 
434 

Wages of New Russia Company's 

employees, 381 
Walton, Mr., Vice-Consul, quoted, 

371 
Wardrop, Mr., Vice-Consul, quoted, 

371 
Wei-hai-wei, 396 
Western modes, modern attitude of 

Russia toward, 8, 9 
Wheat (see also Grain) — 

Low price of, in Eastern Russia, 129 



Wheat- 
Siberian production of, 154 
William II., Emperor of Germany — 

England, visit to, 397 

France, attitude toward, 391, 392 

Navy, declarations regarding, 433 

Pan-Germanism of, 407 

Russia, attitude toward, 395-397 

Turkish policy of, 389, 400, 402 
Williams, Colonel, 311 
Windt, Mr. Harry de, railway scheme 

of, 154, note 
Wine, Caucasian, 180, 193, 209, 210 
Wirballen (Vierzhbolovo), 4 
Witte, M. de, Serge Julievitch, Min- 
ister of Finance — 

Address of, to the Tsar, regarding 
Manchurian railway, 124, note 

Budget of 1902, Report on, 386, note 

Career of, 350-354, 454 

Coal industry development advo- 
cated by, 375 

Finland, military proposals for, dis- 
approved by, 88 

Imperial confidence in, 362, 385 

Loans, statement regarding, 366, 
note 

Policy of, 354-356, 370 
Wolff, Rev. Dr. Joseph, career of, 
310-313 and notes; quoted, 297, 
313 
Women — m 

Bokhara, in, 302, 303 

Finland, in, position of, 80 

Georgia, in, 209 
Wood (see also Timber) — 

Cost of, 30 

Fuel of, on railways, 5, 7 
Wood-pulp — 

Demand for, 376 

Finland, industry in, 76-78 
Workmen, 381 

Yakutsk, 98 

Yasinovataya, 378 

Yate, Colonel C. E., cited, 419, note 

Yelagin, 13 

Yenisseisk, 98 



476 INDEX /V 

Yermak, exploits of, 96, 97 Zemstro taxes, 382 

" Yermak " (steamer), 122 Zhoravko-Pokorski, Mr. D., cited, 

Younghusband, Major F. E., quoted, 268, note 

430 Zinovieff, M., attitude of, toward 

French claim on Turkey, 393, note 
Zaitzef, Colonel, 347 Zlataoust, 131, 133 



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